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!