Review by Steve Bennett

Comedy festivals can sometimes feel they’ve a split personality; with the hardcore fans scurrying around the backwaters seeking the next exciting big thing in a field of chaff, while established names pull in the big crowds, despite having often complacently lazy shows.

Well, Denise Scott, should satisfy both markets. She’s been around for three decades, yet has produced a fresh, funny and exquisitely delivered masterclass of frill-free stand-up. She’s not been having the best festival, with shows cancelled for personal reasons and well-publicised flak for a joke that really didn’t deserve it, but Regrets deserves to be seen.

That phoney furore momentarily knocks her off her stride as it concerns the first gag of her show, and she is forced to address the elephant in the room while trying to actually deliver the line. However, we’re soon over that wobble which, it turns out, it ties in neatly with one of the themes of the show: that she regrets inadvertently causing offence in her comedy, even thought she seems to have an unnatural knack for doing so.

Mostly, though, this is a catalogue of embarrassing tales at her own expense. And my, has she got plenty to choose from. After a few low-key ones to warm us up, such as the regrettable Eighties perm, come the genuinely cringe-worthy tales of a teenage pash, her ill-fated attempts to impress the younger generation of comics on the festival roadshow tour last year, and foot-in-mouth moments both onstage and off.

These are all told with an appealing frankness, and glint-in-the-eye naughtiness at sharing such indiscretions – especially surrounding nominally ‘edgier’ topics such as life on a dementia unit. However her mothering instinct ensures that she looks after the audience, leading them safely though the material.

Stories you wouldn’t expect from a woman of a certain age, from drunken high-jinks to talk of nipples, in a winning combination with her experienced, natural delivery makes Scott so appealing. And one thing you won’t regret is spending an hour in her personable company.

Reviewed at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, April 2011

Review date: 1 Jan 2012
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett