Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

It’s certainly ironic that the gimmick of performing stand-up as the ageless Nosferatu gets old quickly. 

Rhiannon McCall is an engaging comedian, and some solid – and some corny – vampire-themed jokes emerge from her excellent premise… but not enough to sustain the hour.

Donning whiteface to portray the titular characters, the Kiwi comedian humanises this gruesome blood-sucking predator. Nosferatu kicks off his show with some ‘normal’ stand-up. ‘A little bit about me…’ the supposed monster utters, casual as you like.

A fun device is that instead of the ‘badoom-tish’ of a rimshot, any dad joke in the repertoire is topped with a dramatic lighting change, freezing Nosferatu in a creepy pose in the centre of a harsh white spotlight.

In McCall’s effective reinterpretation, the vampyr sees himself, perhaps delusionally, as a ‘sexy bachelor’. But he’s also a lovelorn one, describing his ill-fated search for romance. 

A skit reenacting a date with elaborate captions, as if a silent movie scene, is a nice idea that gets the audience involved, but the ensuing gag isn’t strong enough, and burdened with too much premise – something of a recurring issue for the show

Elsewhere, McCall’s crowd work isn’t confident enough to land reliably, while her futzing with the fan to get the right setting for the audience steals early momentum.

Nosferatu is not just unlucky in love, he’s unlucky in his chosen field of acting, too. And by the time we get to an improvised Home And Away audition scene, not once but twice, we’ve moved a long way from the original premise. The notion that a character for whom direct sunlight is fatal would be hanging out in Summer Bay is the only joke.

McCall’s a great performer, inhabiting her sinister alter-ego loosely enough to let her own considerable charm come through. But the strong Nosferatu idea is too slapdash in its execution – with the premise needing more purpose behind it to sustain a full show, rather than just be an excuse for a muck-about.

• Rhiannon McCall: Nosferatu Looking For Love is on at The Motley Wherehaus at 6.45pm until April 19, except Wednesday.

Review date: 14 Apr 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival