Review by Talia Carl­isle

Is it a bird, is it a plane, no it’s Sam­antha Han­nah lead­ing a super all-female all-funny line-up of comedi­ans that share a strik­ing resemb­lance… but def­in­itely aren’t all the same per­son… *wink!*

Hav­ing been nom­in­ated for both Best Comedi­an, and Best MC at last year’s Wel­ling­ton Com­edy Awards, it makes sense that Samantha’s next impress­ive feat com­bines both skills, plus brings to life some love­able and mem­or­able comed­ic char­ac­ters try­ing their luck at stand-up – and with Samantha’s guid­ance hit it out of the park.

Our beloved MC “Sammy” struts in like a celebrity because she is, and intro­duces her first alterego to this bust­ling Tues­day night crowd as Emily Dix­on-Smith, a squeaky and anxious funny creature who reminds me of my favour­ite movie star – Mar­cel the Shell with Shoes on.

That’s right, this red-car­pet bound movie star Mar­cel is known for their hope­ful take on even the darkest of situ­ations and movie star-to-be Emily’s wide brimmed glasses are a def­in­ite step out of her shell without com­prom­ising on Christ­mas crack­er turned dark jokes that crack the audi­ence up in no time.

Small and shaky Emily’s catch­phrase is whispered through wobbly high pitched pan­ic – “We’re hav­ing fun”… and gets high­er and more pan­icked as the set goes on. “I think we should all be anxious,” Emily pro­fesses earn­estly. “There’s a lot to worry about”. You’ll have to watch the show to find out what exactly, yet the audience’s wor­ries are left out­side the Cav­ern Club door while rauc­ous laughter spreads through the bar instead.

MC Sammy encour­ages the crowd to sup­port shy Emily, and all the won­der­ful female acts with applause, before intro­du­cing our next power­house com­ic, and a wan­nabe… banana… called Sweaty Patches. Who did you expect to see?

Actu­ally these fun char­ac­ters – includ­ing the last two whop­pers Mary­anne McLeod and Abi­gail Hard­nut, who pull all the punches and catch all the jokes – feign in com­par­is­on to our MC Sammy’s excit­ing stor­ies about dun­geons and pris­on ana­lo­gies, in between cham­pi­on­ing inclus­ive audi­ences and all the fine women in the crowd.

Des­pite a sus­pi­cious tinge of Scot­tish accent in all of MC Sammy’s comedi­ans, there is a won­der­ful worldly mes­sage about sup­port­ing new­comers, and par­tic­u­larly women and minor­it­ies, and lift­ing the rose tin­ted glasses that com­edy is as easy as chan­ging your sil­ver coat or banana hat.

It’s a tough road, and thank­fully we don’t have to do it. We can bene­fit from Sam­antha and all the won­der­ful comedi­ans pour­ing their hearts into com­edy all-year-around – not just dur­ing the Inter­na­tion­al Com­edy Fest­iv­al.

Lucky for Wel­ling­ton, there is a lot to offer.

I heard Mar­cel, I mean Emily, squeak a whis­per that a tour might be on the cards in future. And these award-worthy lady women comedi­ans are not to be missed. I’m not jok­ing around!