Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

Mourning the death of her greyhound Teddy, Emma Holland starts her show with a sombre and heartfelt essay poetically musing on the nature of grief.

It is, thankfully, a ‘psyche!’ moment, as the rest of the hour shuns such self-indulgence to take a far more comic look at the topic. Everyone acts strangely under the dark cloud of loss, and given that Holland was already eccentric enough, she now has a plethora of self-deprecating stories about how she dealt (badly) with the aftermath of Teddy being put down.

The comic immediately fled back to her parents’ home in suburban Brisbane, seeking comfort and support and familiarity – familiarity, even with her mum’s peculiarities. There she tried various distraction activities. Could retail therapy be the answer? Or a session in a sensory deprivation tank? 

It seems that despite being brought up on Old Yeller, the 1950 children’s Disney film that had a devastatingly age-inappropriate scene of a dog dying, Holland was emotionally ill-equipped to deal with such a loss herself.

While there are plenty of scenes of poignancy in her tale, such as her finding her home strangely large without a 40kg canine taking up space, the comic sets out to exaggerate the absurdities of her situation. She’s prone to literally making a song and dance of her grief, and there are a number of exceptionally strong gags sitting in the narrative.

Though Holland can be a loose and quirky performer – and  we get glimpses of that here – the show is slick, and meticulously structured.

Running jokes and callbacks both blatant and subtle tie things together, adding to the well-balanced mix of the silly and the sincere. Holland even has a ‘canary in a coalmine’ device to offer early warning in case any material that gets too dark. Does the canary die in the end? You’ll have to watch the show to find out…

• Emma Holland: The Dog Dies At The Start is at Comedy Republic at 7.30pm to April 19 (Not 13th). It will be at Assembly George Square during the Edinburgh Fringe.

Review date: 8 Apr 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival