Cirrus@Austlit

'Everyone loves a good sledging. Critic Kenneth Tynan once said of an actor that ‘it would be easier to strike sparks off a rubber dinghy than Sir Ralph.’ Film critic Roger Ebert’s scathing reviews are so beloved that his most popular have been collected into a series of books: I Hated, Hated, Hated, HATED This Movie; Your Movie Sucks; and A Horrible Experience of Unendurable Length.

'The first rule of making art is don’t respond to your critics. But in Wild Bore three masters of smart, spiky, political comedy delve into the torrent of critical fury that has been aimed at baffling, misunderstood and downright awful works of art (including their own). They are superstars in their own right, but Zoe Coombs Marr (winner of the Barry Award at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for Trigger Warning), Ursula Martinez (UK) and Adrienne Truscott (US) now team up for the first time to prove they too are not afraid to talk out of their arses.' (Production summary)

'Kate:

'Dear Better Half, 
'We'd known each other for years before anything really happened. pd seen you, when I was younger, and thought you were pretty cool. you were bolshie, and funny, but I had other things going on, and you did too. '  (Introduction)

'Trigger Warning sees the return of Dave – a meat-headed standup with a low slung ponytail, stonewashed jeans and plenty of dick jokes – who suffers an epic meltdown on stage in such a fashion that will leave you bewildered, challenged and completely hysterical long after you have left the show.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Brianna is a stand-up comedian. This is her life: an unfortunate name, a boring childhood, slow self-realisation, a late coming-out. Drink. Standing in smelly rooms with strange men who all tell the same jokes. Vomiting on stage. Carrying on anyway. Is there a reason? Probably not. Just a way of coping with your own mediocrity. Whose life is this anyway?

'Zoë Coombs Marr’s brilliant new play is a portrait of a life in a comedy routine. Well, five overlapping comedy routines, from five Briannas at different ages, performed by five foolhardy actresses. It is funny. And it is not funny. It is about being funny when funny is all you have.

'Is This Thing On? is a kind of Don Quixote for the female comic – a magnificent and stupid quest for one shining moment of specialness which may have already happened.' (Production summary)