I’m here on the ground at Wellington’s Fringe Bar to catch a show at the tail end of the 2024 New Zea­l­and Inter­na­tion­al Com­edy Fest­iv­al – The Trans­gender Agender. This lineup of fab­ulous trans and/or non-bin­ary comedi­ans made much mer­ri­ment on the last Sat­urday of this year’s NZICF, much to the joy of their sold-out audi­ence.

The stand­ard dis­claim­er applies – I’m friends with at least half this show’s lineup. Such is life when you work in the Wel­ling­ton arts industry; but my remarks don’t come from those preex­ist­ing rela­tion­ships, but from my exper­i­ence as a com­edy-goer. I’m also uniquely placed to review this show, being one of the loc­al review­ers who isn’t cis.

Our MC for the night is Judy Virago, who’s resplen­dent in a long shim­mer­ing gown. Announ­cing the agenda for the day, as well as our raffle, Virago’s poignant polit­ic­al jokes get a big laugh out of the crowd who are deep in the wars of deal­ing with a gov­ern­ment who doesn’t like us all that much. Pulling us through the rest of the show, Judy is deeply charm­ing, and a per­fect pick for MC.

Pro­du­cer of the show, Jules Daniel, is quick-wit­ted and very endear­ing; not just say­ing that because I’ve known him for ten years – they’re very pop­u­lar on Tik­Tok for a reas­on. A won­der­ful first guest on the lineup, they set the tone excel­lently for things to come; with clev­er com­edy and things that are just a little bit filthy in the end.

Sir Traylene is our next per­former. Dan­cing to a ver­sion of Right Said Fred’s ‘I’m Too Sexy’, their per­form­ance is fun but under­stated, and poten­tially goes on a smidge too long. While this per­form­ance is not per­son­ally for me, Sir Traylene clearly has drag skill, and I hope to see their work honed at future drag shows!

With some stan­dup, we have George Fenn fol­low­ing forth. George has always been a must watch of mine in the Pōneke arts scene, and is in fine form here, riff­ing on the exper­i­ence of being bi-gender. George’s stan­dup is almost poet­ic, rhythmic in a way, but is stifled a little by not quite fit­ting the time lim­it for this gig, and hav­ing to speed through punch­lines at the end of the set.

A hil­ari­ous piece of satir­ic­al drag, Olympia Kal­li­pygos is up next, with a set clearly inspired by recent polit­ic­al events (the non-issue “bath­room debate” that con­tin­ues to plague us all), set in part to Fred Schneider’s ‘Mon­ster in My Pants’. Their dance, per­formed against a toi­let-based back­drop, fea­tures a giant soft toy snake and a glow­ing cod­piece, and is a thinker I’ve kept com­ing back to since I left Fringe Bar that night.

Cas­sie Taur­ima is our next stand-up, and her set is down to earth and very charm­ing. I’ve nev­er actu­ally seen Cas­sie do stand-up, des­pite also know­ing her for a long while, and she doesn’t dis­ap­point with a well-bal­ance, clev­er and con­fid­ent set some­what about deal­ing with med­ic­al prac­ti­tion­ers as a trans per­son.

Liv Ward’s set is pos­sibly the most mem­or­able of the night. They sur­prise and delight with a song about a cer­tain loc­al pea­nut but­ter brand (you’ll know the one I mean) that gets the audi­ence singing along. Dry and hil­ari­ous, I vow to find more of their work after the show is over.

Wes­ley Hol­lis, who is per­form­ing in this show after some time away from Wel­ling­ton, draws us in with some anec­dotes about work­ing at a cer­tain loc­al pool. His dad jokes leave the audi­ence both laugh­ing and groan­ing in their seats, but he’s also so, so delight­ful to watch – much like every­one on the lineup.

Robin Yablind, a drag name you’ve prob­ably heard of even if you’re not in the Pōneke scene, delights us with our third drag per­form­ance for the even­ing. His per­form­ance is tight and well-cho­reo­graphed, fea­tur­ing a fangtast­ic fea­ture of one of Pōneke’s pat­ron saints (a vam­pire). With audio clips from well-known vam­pire media, their dance is hil­ari­ous, and enti­cing; enthralling us all by the end.

Leo Len­nox is our final stan­dup of the night and has a con­fid­ent set touch­ing on TERFS, being a “secret third thing” (re: gender) and hanging with “da boys”. So funny, and so delight­ful, I’ve nev­er seen Leo’s work before, but I imme­di­ately want to again.

Our final dance per­form­ance is by Lily Cata­strophe, who wows with a gor­geous feath­er-fan per­form­ance to Sara Bareilles’ ‘I’m Afraid’ (which if you haven’t heard, you should look up right now, it’s incred­ible). A vul­ner­able, strong and sen­su­al per­form­ance, with excel­lent phys­ic­al con­trol; Lily’s dance is one of con­tra­dic­tions, and utterly holds the audi­ence in her grasp.

Cere­mon­ies are con­cluded with a short inter­lude of Dan the Com­edy Man (Jules Daniel), who is our cis and straight diversity hire of the day. Per­haps an off­beat end­ing to a show like this, Dan’s hustled off stage pretty quickly when his com­edy turns par­tic­u­larly faecal, and Judy arrives back, all glitz and glam­our, to wrap up the night.

As much as we shouldn’t have to be piece­meal examin­ing shows like this, The Trans­gender Agender isn’t just a com­edy show with some of Wellington’s most charm­ing per­formers, but at times feels more like an act of protest.

Mere kilo­metres across the city, there’s politi­cians want­ing to strip us of more of our rights. A couple of week­ends back there were trans­phobic voices gath­er­ing with­in Tāk­ina (less than 300m away) to dis­cuss and spew their vit­ri­ol. In this room, we’re happy, and laugh­ing, and giv­ing a big fuck you to those who want to make our lives worse.

That, amongst all the fab­ulous per­form­ances, makes this show one to remem­ber.