Brodie Snook: Villain - Sydney Comedy Festival (NSW)
Reviewed by Juliana Payne The Factory, Marrickville
Sydney Comedy Festival
Until 14th May, 2023
3 STARS
- A very, very dark and often hilarious TED talk that any fan of stand-up should see -
I wish had enough time to scrutinise and analyse Brodie Snook’s seemingly straightforward but multitudinously complex and hilarious stand-up routine properly. But time is short, and I have to get this review online before her run finishes, because I want people to see her show. So I’ll commit the cardinal sin that artists (and I include stand up comics in that nomenclature) hate and use a comparison as a short cut. Snook’s comedy style and output is like a wonderful, stir-fried combination of Kitty Flanagan and Phoebe Waller-Bridge. You’ll have to see the show to get it, and I recommend you do.
Good comics often hone their craft in the mad hothouse mass production machine of TV/YouTube (these days) and I see that Snook has been a writer for Troy Kinne – itself a great accolade for developing a truly Aussie tone and style with plenty of those recognition guffaws from the audience. Snook has now developed a pretty solid persona and tone of her own and while there may seem to be familiar ghosts and shadows of comics long past waiting in the wings, she takes her stories and her own style to new and funnier places.
As an old-timefeminist, I weep that Snook has to apparently skewer her own life, mind and body in the cause of being funny, but I also simultaneously weep with laughter as she includes some pretty savage and utterly funny social satire in the mix. The format she uses is the meandering, seemingly random stream of consciousness monologue, but then the cleverness of her structure starts to hit home and you realise she’s got this all planned out from the beginning. Who knew?
Brodie slaughters her family, the government, the audience, air travel, relationships, the pandemic, and most of all herself for the cause – it’s a very funny, very, very dark TED talk and anyone with any claim to enjoying stand-up comedy should head along ASAP to see Brodie Snook.
Thursday, 11 May 2023 08:10 PM
Friday, 12 May 2023 08:10 PM
Saturday, 13 May 2023 08:10 PM
Sunday, 14 May 2023 07:10 PM
