Wherever Michael Workman performs, award buzz ensues. His gentle yet powerfully poignant work stands apart from the rapid-fire gags of conventional comedy shows. In his first six months in comedy he had already won the national RAW Comedy competition and been flown to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to perform.
His first solo show Humans Are Beautiful took out the coveted Best Newcomer Award at 2011’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival. In 2012 he presented Mercy, a simple, magical story of a man set adrift – magic and fantasy pulled back to human scale when measured against the cruelty of a totalitarian regime’s inhumanity. In 2013 Michael returned to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival with Ave Loretta, a show about music, art and the war against banality which earned him a prestigious Barry Award nomination. War is Workman’s most daring work yet.
