Malthouse Comedy reveals full 2025 line-up

by | Jan 15, 2025

Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre is set to host a bumper crop of comedy this March and April with a stellar roster of local and international guests, award-winning sketch comedy, live podcasts, rising stars and returning theatre hits just announced. With more than 200 shows performed over 22 nights across 4 stages, comedy is back at Malthouse Theatre in a big way from Thursday 27 March to Sunday 20 April.

Curated in-house by the Malthouse team and presented as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Malthouse Comedy delivers a back-to-back schedule of the best in live comedy across six busy weeks. With an early sneak peek revealed late last year – including award-winning singer-songwriter, actor, author and comedian Michelle Brasier; the first ever comedy show performed entirely by a horse from the genius that is Elf Lyons; and the very on-time The Listies with 110% Ready – the full Malthouse Comedy 2025 line-up has now arrived.

Having finally moved out of his parents house and touring the country, British comedian Tom Allen is ready to share a life update with Australian audiences in Completely. And beloved local cabaret star Reuben Kaye returns to Malthouse with The Kaye Hole, a messy late-night variety show from “the evil love child of Liza Minelli and Jim Carrey.”

In a Victorian premiere, the much anticipated and totally unauthorised (but legal!) parody telling of an Australian Olympian’s journey to the 2024 Paris Olympics will go for glory in Stephanie Broadbridge’s Breaking the Musical. And a live recording of the multiple award-winning A Rational Fear podcast sees hosts Dan Illis and Lewis Hobba laugh at the end of the world alongside some of the smartest and funniest comedians in town.

Kirsty Webeck shares her special blend of cheerful comedy and fun facts in Everything I Need to Say about Sea Creatures and past Golden Gibbo Award-winner, Hannah Camilleri, returns to the festival with another hour of silly stuff. Honour Wolff and Patrick Durnan, aka Hot Department, serve up their sexy brand of sketch comedy in a new show, cult comedy favourite Scout Bouxhall recounts a harrowing mental marathon through manic withdrawal in God’s Favourite, and Australia’s First Attractive Comedian, Elouise Eftos, remounts her award-winning hour of comedy.

Comedian and actor Damien Warren-Smith’s irrepressible alter ego, Garry Starr, presents a comedic double bill: his literary-minded one man show, Classic Penguins sees Garry attempt to perform every Penguin Classic and the Edinburgh Fringe Best Kids Show-winning Monkeys Everywhere is an all-ages romp directed by Olivia Jacobs (The Gruffalo and Room on the Broom by Tall Stories).

Upstairs, The Playbox will play host to some of the best and brightest emerging comedy talent. In When I Grow Up, award-winning clown and expert in play Jeromaia Detto responds to the whims of audiences each night while comedian on-the-rise Con Coutis makes a break for it in Escape from Heck Island. 2025 Moosehead Award Recipients, Tommy & Eadie, invite happy campers to escape to the woods in their oh-so queer new musical sketch comedy, Camp Camp and the allusive Big Foot makes a return with Big Foot: In Plain Sight by Handful of Bugs Theatre. Following a sold out run at Melbourne Fringe, CVNT is a wild and joyous night led by Sophie Power as a giant vulva. And Alex Hines encourages audiences to treat themselves with her otherworldly show, Girl Culture.

For kids, Malthouse serves up the culinary mayhem of Signor Baffo. Having toured the UK since 2013, making a mess in the kitchen is all part of the fun in this supremely silly interactive children’s comedy.

From late March through April, punters can see multiple shows a night and enjoy a wine and a meal in the theatre’s outdoor courtyard pre and post show with the Malthouse kitchen open late and a plethora of food trucks parking up.

Malthouse Comedy is curated by Malthouse Theatre and presented as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

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