Should we be worried? Comedians tackle 2025’s most burning question

This year’s laugh-fest has kicked off, with over 1000 performers stepping up to the mic this year. Here, our writers take a closer look.See all 12 stories.

You don’t have to look hard at the state of the world right now to realise that things are a little, well, troubling. War, pestilence and the head-spinning price of eggs have all combined to upset the collective equilibrium. In normal circumstances, comedians might not look like the most sound source of spiritual guidance, but worrying times call for exceptional measures.

Reuben Kaye

Credit: Claudio Raschella Photographer

Should we be worried? Just the openness of the question paralyses you. About what? Today’s world is a pick and mix of existential crises: money, environment, trans rights, Aboriginal and First Nations incarceration.

A nuclear holocaust could happen any moment. Donald Trump, the only man whose mother refused to breastfeed him because he made too much eye contact, could confuse the button on his desk that fires the nukes with the one that orders him a cheeseburger.

Should we worry about the release of men’s rights messiah Andrew Tate? A man who contributes to global warming every day by being responsible for 90 per cent of vaginal dryness. Or Peter Dutton trying to drive nuclear energy with about as much deftness as Princess Diana’s chauffeur?

We’re faced with worries when we pick up a tomato at Woollies, only to realise crop failure by 2030 is not just possible, it’s imminent. Also, that tomato is now the price of a mortgage payment. Oh, you’ve got a mortgage?

We’re in a housing crisis … no one can afford to buy, afford to rent, afford to sell; have you seen the price of cocaine recently? I can’t even afford to die. Also, you shop at Woollies? Don’t you know there’s a supermarket duopoly!? And anyway, who has the time to have a breakdown?

Maybe I would have time to worry if I just shuffled my calendar. I can’t worry about the apocalypse on Monday, I have to pick the kids up from Scouts. They’re learning how to purify drinking water so they can either survive societal collapse or work for Nestle (I’m covering my bases). If we cancel brunch, I’ll have time to pull my hair out about our immigration policy, but it can’t be that bad – it’s called Christmas Island right? Sounds pretty jolly! It’s a lot.

And, I guess we should be worried because the next generation is terrified. What kind of world have we left them? I mean, there are so many microplastics in our bodies, it’s a wonder newborns aren’t popping out as Lego.

Reuben Kaye presents The Party’s Over at the Comedy Theatre on April 15 and 16, and The Kaye Hole at the Malthouse on April 18 and 19. He also appears in Jesus Christ Superstar at the Princess Theatre from March 16.

Chanel Ali

When I was a little girl, I used to worry so much that I would sweat through my shirts every day. Junior high school gym class was extremely hard because I didn’t want to lift my arms too high, but I’m also quite competitive, so now I’m double-sweating.

My main worry was that I couldn’t picture how it was all going to turn out in the end. “It” being my life. I had been a foster kid, I was moving around a ton, and I was worried about the impossibility of a happy ending. It seemed like only the orphans who became superheroes had a happy life.

The only thing I knew was that I was funny, brave and pretty. I made other people sweat sometimes. That’s gotta be worth something. Maybe that’s my superpower? I loved making people laugh because it made everything in life less serious. Bill collectors adored me, they gave me extra time, every time.

I tried stand-up comedy at an open mic and as soon as I stepped under the lights, I felt like I wasn’t worried. Everything made sense. I wasn’t even sweating. Well, not under my arms but a bit from under all my curly hair because those lights are actually quite warm, nobody ever talks about it.

For the first time I didn’t feel like I was defined by all the things that happened in my childhood. My story could end the way I wanted it to, if I believed.

What could it hurt to try and become a professional clown? Perhaps I was built for it, even. A life built on giggling, being silly, performing my art. Helping audiences disappear into their laughter for moments at a time. Free from worry or hopelessness as long as they are under my watch. That’s a happy ending that I wrote myself.

Chanel Ali’s Relative Stranger is at The Westin, April 8-20 (excluding Saturdays).

Wil Anderson

“Should we be worried… about sitting in the front row?” That’s the main question I get about my improvised stand-up.

For some, being included in a comedy show is their nightmare. I suspected this, but was certain after two weeks at Perth Fringe where my backstage dressing room was in reality a curtained-off area between the stage and the entrance which meant I overheard every conversation from “there is no way I am sitting down the front” to “I think we will be safe in the third row” to “I love him on Spicks and Specks”.

That’s why every night I explain to the audience a simple concept: you don’t have to be in the show. In fact, I guarantee if I look you in the eye and you look down I will simply move on to someone else who is happy to chat. And every night when I explain, it gets the exact same reaction: No way, that’s a trap.

I should note, you don’t have to keep your head down, I had one audience member who looked like he was working on a new yoga position: The-Avoiding-Interaction-By-Looking-Downward Dog.

I don’t want to make fun of you, I want to make fun with you. We start strangers, by the end we have shared stories: The women on their first date who thought I was Wes Anderson, the researcher who helped crack the Covid vaccine, or the couple celebrating 20 years of marriage who met during a threesome. (I did ask if they were still in touch with the third person, and was pleased to hear that they are not only still friends, but that she had even been a bridesmaid.)

Should you be worried about climate change, inequality and the rise of AI? Yes, of course, but you don’t have to worry about sitting in the front row of my show.

Wil Anderson’s Whatchu Talkin’ ’Bout Wil? is at Comedy Republic, March 27 - April 20, excluding Mondays.

Sez

If you’re not in a constant state of “this all seems a bit suss”, are you alive right now? The 2025 vibe for everyone I know oscillates between detached irony and profound disappointment with the current state of the world. It’s even become common online to joke about being lobotomised… “damn, an Aperol spritz and lobotomy would POP off right now”.

But even during these wild and uncertain times we’re living in, I hear people say, in the absolute wasteland that is modern dating: “I just want to be with someone who is super easygoing and chill”. Um, sorry, who the hell is easygoing and chill right now? Who is unbothered? Who is blissfully unaware? Are they OK? Did they have a lobotomy for real? Often, the most chill people are NOT chill. Have you seen the movie Midsommar? Have you seen Gone Girl? Have you seen Finding Nemo? Was it necessary to mention my general disdain for the dating world in this column or the groundbreaking film Finding Nemo? Probably not.

When I need to take a break from the constant worry, I have a ritual called D&D (Dissociation and Dumplings). I put my phone on Do Not Disturb and have an “everything” shower where I exfoliate, and lather myself with 20 different oils so that my pores feel like they’re drowning. I sit on the couch, and watch a show that gives me a feeling of sweet nothing like Gilmore Girls or Charmed. I can’t be watching The Handmaid’s Tale, that would just be too real.

I dip the dumplings I’ve ordered into a range of sauces and just CHILL for at least three hours. Then, I wake up the next day and return to the general state of worry. God, it keeps me young! These are the golden years.

Sez performs Keeps Me Young at The Victoria Hotel, March 27 - April 20, excluding Mondays.

Ahir Shah

There’s this line from Gramsci, written almost a hundred years ago, something like: “The old is dead, the new cannot be born; in the interregnum, many morbid symptoms will appear”.

I can’t remember the line exactly, and I know there are a bunch of different translations. It was originally written in Italian, which probably sounds heaps cooler. Interregnum is English for interregno, which is Italian for interregnum, which is Latin for interregnum.

This quotation has, shorn of a context I don’t have space to re-wool, become almost T-shirt-level mundane. Yes, yes - of course that’s how people feel all the time! I’ll bet similar sentiments have been expressed for thousands of years. The underlying feeling was probably old hat when people were saying interregnum the first time.

Perhaps the nature of human life is to believe that one’s brief presence has coincided with the interregnum. (Of course, the fact that most human beings feel like this doesn’t stop it from mattering. I’m in love. You probably are too. This isn’t insignificant just because it’s banal.)

Certainly, writing this in Europe in March 2025, one feels as though the old is very much dead, the new is struggling to be born, and the interregnum is awash with more morbid symptoms than you’ve had hot dinners, baby. It often feels that the most frightening thing about this feeling is that it isn’t remotely novel.

I use the BBC “On This Day” service to find out what was going on when my dad was my age, in the winter of 1984. The headline reads “Violence Follows Gandhi Killing”. Nothing new under the sun. Just the hope that it will rise again.

Ahir Shah presents Ends at The Westin - One, April 5-20, excluding Mondays.

Anisa Nandaula

Should we be worried about how difficult the Australian way of speaking is to understand for immigrants like me? I think we need to make a handbook. There are so many Australian phrases that no one could possibly understand unless you have grown up here. Luckily, I’ve been in this country for 22 years and I’ll walk you through my favourite examples. These are the most worrying ones.

The first phrase is one Australians use to tell you the conversation is over, in the most polite way. That phrase is “righteo mate”. If you hear this phrase, it could either mean that you have bored an acquaintance, said something crazy or that the person you’re talking to is about to glass you. I’m wondering why this was not in the citizenship test. I feel like it’s something we should know. I could have been using “righteo mate” this whole time.

Another phrase is the most used yet least talked about. With this phrase I had no idea that I could share the most sad and depressing story with an Australian and a valid response for them is the phrase “oh yeah”. In Australia “oh yeah” is a sufficient phrase to respond when someone tells you something traumatic. That is the most emotionally mature response that an Australian person could have to your trauma. I didn’t know this. I just thought they didn’t care. Now I’m using it as well.

This brings us to the last and not least confusing of the phrases: “How you going”. This phrase is very confusing when you first arrive in this country. When I arrived, if someone asked “how ya goin” I would actually tell them about my mental and physical wellbeing. By the time I’m talking they would have already gotten into the car and driven away. No one tells you that the question is very much rhetorical.

Anisa Nandaula performs You Can’t Say That at The Victoria Hotel and The Westin - One, March 27 - April 20, excluding Mondays. The Melbourne International Comedy Festival runs March 26-April 20. The Age is a festival partner. http://comedyfestival.com.au