Comedy Festival 2018: Zoë Coombs Marr exceptional in the exhilarating Bossy Bottom ★★★★½

SOPHISTICATED, exhilarating meta-comedy from Zoë Coombs Marr, a former Barry winner at the top of her game.

MY bad. This reviewer is a latecomer. I confess to never having caught a Zoë Coombs Marr show. I’ve somehow missed her alter ego, sexist comic Dave, the character that won her the Barry award in 2016’s Trigger Warning. And I’m a fool because it’s obvious Coombs Marr is among this country’s top flight of comics. Boy, have I been missing out.

But not any more. The comedian’s latest show, Bossy Bottom, is surely one of the most exhilarating, intelligently constructed shows at this year’s festival.

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Dave is gone. It’s Coombs Marr as herself on stage tonight. But despite the comic’s reassurances that her new show is all “silly jokes about genitals and stuff’, eschewing gimmicks or props, with no story, no deep message, no arc or politics … you know it ain’t gonna happen. Coombs Marr is far too excited with the comic possibilities of subverting traditional stand-up to tell “did you ever notice?” jokes for an hour.

The show starts three, four, five times. And not necessarily at the start of the show either. And not necessarily with Coombs Marr herself starting the show.

Zoe Coombs Marr’s Bossy Bottom is one of the most exhilarating, intelligently constructed shows at this year’s festival.

There are plenty of jokes and much uproarious laughter as the gay comedian plays with PC attitudes by trying ever so politely not to offend straight audience members (“straight people — I’ve seen all your movies, I love your culture!” she enthuses), much as a white comedian might overcompensate to avoid accidental racial stereotyping.

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She recounts jokes that her parents have casually suggested she might incorporate into her show, in doing so turning lame material into hilarious, simply in the telling.

There’s a great story about Coombs Marr performing her Dave character in a drag club in London, where an audience member, missing the irony, takes her to task for offending women.

Much of this terrific show is anti-comedy to an extent, with the comic continually taking the mickey out of stand-up tropes, but it’s not often the joke is sustained this cleverly.

Coombs Marr admits at one point that the longest relationship she’s ever had has been with her audience. She admits she thinks of her audience as a single, amorphous mass.

On the evidence of Bossy Bottom, she’ll have amorphous masses laughing themselves silly for many years to come. An exceptional show — don’t miss it.

Zoë Coombs Marr, Bossy Bottom

Melbourne Town Hall, cnr of Swanston and Collins sts, until April 22.

comedyfestival.com.au