Australian comedy heavyweight Kitty Flanagan is famed for her time on ‘Full Frontal’
Australian comedy heavyweight Kitty Flanagan is famed for her time on Full Frontal and is a Melbourne International Comedy Festival regular, having hosted this showy shindig last year. She came back in 2011 to perform her 2010 sell-out show Charming And Alarming.
She provides a bit of clever PR for her acoustic-guitar playing sister Penny, who opens and closes the show. The actual content and themes are nothing too radical. She uses a safe stand-up formula to discuss and deliver well-timed punch lines about Australian accents, mums (targeting mainly teenage mums and 30-something posh mummies), drinking, drugs, the elderly and travelling.
Armed with nothing else but her mic and a sharp suit, she paces the stage naturally, performing in a conversational tone that relies on only the tiniest sliver of audience interaction. Her confident and composed style lends itself well to what is a typical but witty stand up routine.
She talks a lot about relatable things for women, but she only touches briefly on the “I am a lady and I do comedy” thing (much appreciated) and she does so through a really funny anecdote about performing comedy in a men’s prison.
The final song performed by Penny and Kitty falls a little flat with its frequently used “kids nowadays, huh” theme, but I was just glad to see a piece of musical comedy in the MICF that doesn’t use a loop machine.
The content isn’t alarming but as far as comedians go, Kitty is about as charming as they come. Her likable personality makes this a show worth seeing. Her sly side-of-the-mouth punch lines remind me of the things I find genuinely funny during everyday conversation with my friends that I can never fully relay the humour of to others without being That Girl (the one who is shit at stories). I think the woman next to me must have been sensing the electricity of Kitty’s chakra or something because she was sincerely losing her shit for the duration of the show.
Kitty is likable, cynical, not over-the-top and is obviously super intelligent.I laughed a fair bit during her routine and if she wanted to follow up, become my friend, take me out for a coffee and shoot the shit, I wouldn’t say no.
