OBSERVER: I’ll Allow It
Arriving onstage, Bronwyn Kuss (pictured) reveals that she has been hiding in the narrow space between the wall and the curtain, listening to the comments as the audience files in.
Unsurprisingly, audience members want to avoid the front row.
Kuss assures the front row that she will pick on everyone else for audience participation. The rest of us laugh nervously.
We needn’t worry; Kuss delivers a first-rate stand-up set sans any audience humiliation.
Winner of the Director’s Choice Award and Pinder Prize at the 2024 Melbourne Comedy Festival, Kuss is a master of storytelling stand-up.
Kuss starts the set with a fart joke delivered at the expense of her girlfriend, the producer of the fart.
Kuss mines her childhood growing up in Peak Crossing, a blink and you would probably miss the town in rural Queensland.
A competitive mother outsprinting her daughter in the great race of life, a father obsessed with marathon running, and questionable games played with her younger brothers all get a scorching.
Accounts of embarrassing failings, as well as the banalities of office temping, are hilariously dissected.
Co-workers protecting fiefdoms with passwords, the absurdities of AI, the longevity of elderly Greek villagers, and Gwyneth Paltrow’s latest wellness obsession all feature in Kuss’s matter-of-fact, droll but whip-smart delivery.
Next up, we travel on the Greyhound bus across the United States, an adventure everyone thinks is iconic until they try it.
An expert at foreshadowing, Kuss’s stories meander throughout the set but always finish with a sharp and snappy payoff.
With deadpan delivery, Kuss dispenses joke after funny joke, with some cracking one-liners.
Performance Dates: Until April 20
Venue: The Westin – Two, 205 Collins St., Melbourne
Bookings: comedyfestival.com.au
Review by Kathryn Keeble