Review of the Australian comic's latest stand-up show

At 6ft 5in, Lou Wall’s height has always attracted attention, almost always unwarranted. No wonder that as a child ‘Big Lou’ tried to shrink away, becoming a hide-and-seek ninja. To this day, the comedian gets 3.71 comments a day on average – a figure achieved through meticulous first-hand research.

Yet Wall couldn’t help but notice the demographic oddity mentioned in this show’s title. Why is it always LITTLE old ladies? Where ARE all the tall nanas? The effervescent comic doesn’t believe what ‘Big Osteo’ wants you to think – that it’s all down to bone shrinkage – as an inch or two’s height loss wouldn’t make much of a difference.

So begins an earnest quest to track down vertiginous pensioners, with Wall visiting the places older folk hang out – supermarkets at dawn, Wetherspoons-style pubs down under – to no avail. And there’s video evidence to prove it. But maybe the search is not quite in such earnest… No one’s surely supposed to take at face value Wall’s claim to have visited 100 nursing homes in their mission. Talk about a tall story.

The comic’s off-the-wall suggestion that Ikea is hiding them all away as shelf-stackers doesn’t warrant serious consideration – as the poor call-centre worker Wall rang quickly figured out. The fact this endeavour is all so flippant slightly frustrates the investment audiences might be prepared to put into it, but Wall sells it hard.

The comic deploys plenty of their trademark high-energy, multimedia presentations, adding extra gags to lively music numbers, which have a tendency to break off into entertaining digressions so convoluted that you almost forget Wall was singing until they pick the tune back up again. 

There are some great gags as well as some genuinely fascinating information in the packed show, including some Wall family history and examples from the animal kingdom of where females are so much bigger than the males (anglerfish anyone?), so unlike the way society has conditioned us to think about big men and slight women. Those archetypes have had adverse effects on both genders… but do you think Joe Rogan wants to know about this aspect of masculinity? (The answer’s obviously ‘no’, but Wall did check…)

Then there is the truly jaw-dropping discovery on which the whole show pivots, a terrible fact that drops with powerful impact. The expert at hiding proves skilled at seeking the truth, too. Wall lets their revelation hang for a moment or two until bringing the frivolity back – upbeat, both in the cheerful and rhythmic sense of the word.

Wall’s chaotic – but engagingly chaotic – energy isn’t the most natural fit for hard-hitting social science, but they make it work. There’s not enough room for some of the side-issues they’ve thrown into the mix – but this is a tighter show, and a more buoyant one, than the version Wall performed in Melbourne earlier this year, and they can be forgiven for leaving some strands by the wayside in the drive to make their most crucial points. 

Plus that central disclosure will stay with you long after the show’s over.

• Lou Wall: Where Are All The Tall Grandmas? is back at the Park Theatre in Finsbury Park, North London, at 8.30pm tonight and tomorrow.

Review date: 17 Sep 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett