Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

Inspired by his father’s decision to sell the tumbledown home he grew up in, Sam Taunton shares a vivid personal memoir of his youth in the small New South Wales city of Nowra. 

He describes it as a coastal place where bogan meets hippy, as evidenced by his parents. His father was a country music singer and his mother an alternative therapist. Ill-thought-out DIY projects left the house with wonky floors, terrible decoration and, somehow, decking indoors.

Childhood memories of the place held special resonance for the comic as its sale came as he and his wife were looking to buy a home together, flush with the money he earned from The Project – until Network 10  cancelled it – turning him into a voracious consumer of property porn. 

It also invited comparisons between his quirky backwater early life and his wife’s upbringing in a Comfortable middle-class home in cosmopolitan Buenos Aires.

With a chilled anecdotal approach, Taunton reminisces about incidents he now recognises as formative, such as his dad’s peculiar life advice – awkwardly improvised on the spur of the moment yet which has stuck with him to this day – and the intruder he found in the house when a child.

In replaying his personal story, Taunton paints a warm and lucid portrait, the memories affectionate for all their quirks. He is celebrating the eccentric place he came from – both geographic and metaphorical – and teasing it gently with fondness rather than mocking with superiority.

It’s a delightful piece of storytelling – even if it’s more successful in creating mood than big rolling laughs. Indeed, the funniest moments here came from peculiar interactions with a definite oddball on the front row, proving that weirdos are not confined to the countryside. 

But Taunton’s a charming guide to the Nowra of his youth – making this a trip down memory lane worth taking.

• Sam Taunton: This Must Be The Place is on at QT Melbourne at 8.35pm (7.35pm Sundays) until April 19. 

Review date: 13 Apr 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival