Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

We may be in one of the more modern, well-specced venues used by the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, but Emma Holland exudes a decidedly less sleek vibe.

Slightly awkward on stage, she illustrates her daft gags with lo-fi Photoshop work, typical of her silly but understated style. She’s not one to shout about how wacky she is, but starting the show on a Lime scooter with a toy monkey strapped to her helmet is surely a strong enough signal without her having to make a big deal about it.

This is accompanied by footage of a real monkey riding a dog at a sporting event, establishing a notion that the show, at least in part, is a scrapbook of memes collected and then twisted by Holland. She variously  incorporates pictures of ugly animals, Ernest Hemingway’s sad six-word story and bizarre items spotted on Facebook marketplace, among others. It’s bite-sized, visually-led comedy, drawing upon offbeat parts of pop culture - how perfectly suited to the TikTok generation that is.

Holland’s art-school sensibilities pervade her DIY visual gags, such as her deliberately clunky versions of couples’ T-shirts, while in the more stand-upppy elements, she proves herself a good writer of bad jokes.  That’s meant as a compliment, as she has an ear for an unobvious double meaning and an ability to lean into an absurdity based on the flimsiest of premises, and still make it work. Some of the best lines are delivered almost as throwaways, where elsewhere she’ll labour a less funny point just, for the amusement of it.

Her persona plays up the ingenue, but there can be a bit of an edge to her mischief. She sometimes edges into darker material – where the audience are less keen to follow her – or introduces the occasional flick of social commentary. But is this was music, these would much quieter notes beneath the cartoony slide-whistles and wobble boards of her silliness.

Her gawky lack of slickness is disarming, but also means it’s difficult to get fully swept away in her world, as she seems slightly unsure of it herself. She doesn’t fully own her oddness in the way that, say, Sam Campbell does. 

And momentum is hard to build up as – a couple of callbacks aside – this is a series of standalone bits with not much in the way of  narrative or structure. But those individual routines showcase a fertile and distinctive comic mind en route to bigger things.

Review date: 4 Apr 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival