★★★★: Judith Lucy vs Men is gutsy and gut-bustingly funny

Judith Lucy puts her love life under the microscope in her new comedy festival show, asking the audience to decide whether she should just give up dating forever. So what’s the verdict? READ OUR REVIEW.

“Twenty-three,” Judith Lucy says wistfully of a young audience member’s age.

“I’ve been doing this eight years longer than you’ve been alive.”

Those of a certain age - older than the 23-year-old in the front row, at least - know that for most of her three decades as a performer, the incomparable Judith Lucy has been fearlessly wringing comedy from the deeply personal, the tragic, the embarrassing and the plain ridiculous.

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This is a comic, remember, renowned for cheerfully recounting her experience hiring a male escort. (“It cost $648. I got screwed.”)

Lucy’s latest show, Judith Lucy Vs Men, is typically self-analysing and self-deprecating: a potted history of the blokes she’s encountered in her life, from a heavy-drinking father to primary school crushes; from the one night stands to the men with whom she’s shared longer relationships.

Judith Lucy, far left, with fellow comedy stars Joel Creasey, Anne Edmonds, Rhys Nicholson, Wil Anderson, Becky Lucas, Tom Gleeson, Tommy LIttle, Dave Hughes and Dilurk Jayasinha at The Espy for a Herald Sun photo shoot. Picture: Nicole Cleary

At times it’s been a search for “The One”, a quest nicely parodied in a fairytale reading replete with cartoon pictures that would make a Disney executive blush.

At the end of this men’s catalogue of the good, the bad and the ugly (mostly bad), we’re asked to judge whether Lucy should simply throw her hands in the air and give up dating.

A comic of Lucy’s experience knows how to wring maximum laughs from every well-honed line, and the heavy stream of gags is delivered perfectly in her supremely droll tone.

Judith Lucy asks the audience to vote whether she should give up dating for good in her new show, Judith Lucy Vs Men.

Lucy’s trip through her back pages wasn’t easy, she confesses, but such candour, – while eliciting the occasional gasp – grabs loads of laughs.

The soul searching ends after the audience jury hands down its decision about Lucy’s dating future, but there’s a very bold coda to come.

There’ll be no revealing what’s in store here; suffice to say the show ends more bravely - and for some, confrontingly - than any of the shows she’s done in her 30-odd years of performing. Judith Lucy: gutsy and gut-bustingly funny, right to the end.

Rating: ★★★★

Judith Lucy, Judith Lucy Vs Men, Arts Centre, until April 14.