Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

Be wary of TikTokkers doing live comedy shows is usually a good maxim, unless you’re already a fan. 

But Julian O’Shea, from the geekier end of the platform, proves a solid exception. He’s built up a decent following online thanks to his passion for Melbourne, especially its transport, and his quirky, entertaining way of sharing it.

Those followers have come out in force, selling out his whole festival run and extra shows besides. But M Is For Melbourne has plenty to offer non-subscribers, too, just as long as you have a healthy curiosity for the place.

Taking an A-Z approach, O’Shea runs through some of most and least loved aspects of one of the world’s most liveable cities, with the audience invited to cheer or boo each chapter heading to encourage a good-natured tribalism. 

Quintessentially Melbourne things like the hook turn get the loudest cheer, perhaps because they most alienate outsiders. Other things might be new to even long-in-the-tooth Melburnians, such as the Collins Street bike lane so tiny you could easily miss it.

For an ‘educational content creator’ - his dry term for what he does – O’Shea is a witty communicator with a penchant for offbeat ways of illustrating his subject matter, but the main appeal is his palpable enthusiasm for it.

Some content here is ‘found’ comedy – such as dumb TripAdvisor reviews – which, once sourced, he only has to read out verbatim, while elsewhere he goes to far too much work, such as using an elongated soft toy as a measure for road safety rules.

The old joke, which he uses, is that this is educational comedy, so if you laugh, it’s comedy, if you don’t, it’s educational. Indeed, he’s highly informative on some topics, especially on the sinister origins of jaywalking as a crime. Elsewhere, he proves something of a campaigner, coining the phrase ‘truckzilla’ for monster SUVs unsuited to city streets, which seems to be taking off.

Some of the show would benefit from a knowledge of the affable O’Shea’s back catalogue, but it’s not essential, and most of the mainstream media appearances he replays  mean more to him than they probably do to us. 

But as a man always doing something in the service of his channel, there’s plenty of content to draw upon in creating this love letter to his hometown, warts, truck-eating bridges, and all.

Review date: 8 Apr 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival