Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

Are you ready to do the Devil’s work? Hell’s HR officer Ramone has all you need to know in this orientation lesson.

The aim for us new recruits is to make the world incrementally worse, via whatever irritants, big or small, can be added to everyday life. To help us understand what might be necessary, our strangely-accented trainer offers case studies of what has been achieved previously.

Unfortunately, it’s a restrictive format for a comedy show, largely just a catalogue of all the things wrong with the world, from trying to get through to Centrelink to greater evils like Cardinal George Pell or Donald Trump. Worthy targets all, but it quickly becomes repetitive, with most items raised only as an example of whatever level of awful before moving on. Meanwhile the PowerPoint only occasionally adds a visual gag – most of the slides are as unnecessary as in a real corporate session.

Andy Balloch – the man in the sleeveless pinstripe suit before us – does add a few entertaining flourishes to try to elevate this, such as the satirical slogans for the Catholic Church which is sponsoring his work. 

Wordplay seems to be spawned from Satan, too, given how much of it happens here – but luckily most gags are pretty good. Other sections that aim to change things up, such as a ‘spin class’ to illustrate how journalists can make anything sound bad, have mixed effect.

Eventually the show moves towards a more significant purpose, asserting that one of Hell’s greatest inventions is bystander syndrome - the phenomenon that the more people witness something bad, the less likely any of them is to do anything about it. It’s a timely and sobering reminder of the well-established consequence of what happens when good people do nothing.

Review date: 19 Apr 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival