MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL COMEDY FESTIVAL
DEMI LARDNER: LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO ★★★½
Melbourne Town Hall
Until April 23

Demi Lardner's conceit in this show – playing a man – is a gutsy move following Zoe Coombs Marr's Barry and Golden Gibbo-winning turn last year as Dave in Trigger Warning. 

But her everyman Gavin – who at 46 is twice Lardner's age – is a very different beast for the 2013 Raw Comedy winner, named best newcomer at the 2016 Sydney Comedy Festival.

Gavin is stuck in his basement, on the phone to a life insurance saleswoman in a call centre – or so he thinks.   

Lardner's surreal silliness, feebly assisted by her endearing collaborator Angus Brown and directed by Aunty Donna's Mark Bonanno, is winningly chaotic and while it doesn't always hit the mark, it mainly taps the funny bone.

Her "secret stash" sketch, a high point of an at times patchy hour-long show, is even more hilarious in full than when it stole the show at the MICF gala.