Saturday, 6 April 2019

Just Doing It - Comedy Review

What: Just Doing It
When: 28 March - 21 April 2019*
Where: Evatt Room, Trades Hall
Written and performed by: Emily Tresidder
Emily Tresidder
Emily Tresidder has been doing stand up comedy since 2015 with great success and she is back with us in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival this year. Bringing us her new show Just Doing It, Tresidder brings a stage full of personality and humour to Trades Hall.

Just Doing It is a bit of departure for Tresidder. Her past shows have generally revolved around a theme and had a standard narrative arc. This year though, Tresidder has taken a stream of consciousness approach and weaves a meandering path from work life to family life to ... well...  life in general.

Whilst this is a riskier road because it requires every joke to hit the mark rather than letting anticipation do some of the work with the audience, it also means there is a raw honesty to Tresidder's story telling which brings out a darkness which is seductive and puts us all on her side in a journey which sometimes insists sides be taken.

Tresidder daylights as a shoe sales person. She sells very expensive shoes to women who drive Range Rovers. You know who they are... After revealing her most profitable sales technique Tresidder goes on to wow the audience with her super power of being able to guess shoe sizes to the half size (European). Pro tip: get a pedicure and wear your nicest shoes!

And don't worry men, you aren't excluded. You won't believe how her super power works on you!

Speaking of men, Tresidder leads us into a darker world - the world of bad dads. Yes, she has one and he went and bought a second bride. It is in this part of the tale Tresidder reveals her vulnerability and whilst her stories are funny, the pain is evident.

Sadly there are so many bad dad stories it gets a bit hard to laugh. Maybe we should be doing something about that as a society rather than laughing? It is hard to see how young men can learn to be who they want to be when we are so accepting of the poor role models they have had.

Moving on though! Tresidder does not dwell in this space, but goes on to happier places and the unreserved laughter re-emerges.

Tresidder has a gift for story selling. She is animated and engaging and she has this great trick of turning the audience reaction back on itself and it is almost as if we spend as much time laughing at ourselves as we do laughing with her.

The biggest problem of the night is really the Evatt Room. I hate that room. It has poor air flow and over the course of a long night of comedy shows the air quality becomes really bad. Luckily however, Tresidder's show is an early one so the room is still quite habitable for Just Doing It.

Tressider has great skills as a stand up comedienne and you are guaranteed laughs no matter what. Just Doing It is a riskier show for her, but it is still a lot of fun for us so get on down to Trades Hall and kick off a full night of comedy with this show.

3 Stars

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