Review by Lucy Holz
Supported by the Melbourne International Comedy Festival’s Pinder Prize, Bronwyn Kuss is making her Edinburgh Fringe debut. Known for her signature dry delivery, she stands out in a festival of over 1,300 shows with this classic trademark of the Australian comedy style.
During this set Kuss doesn’t crack a smile, delivering her material and even post-set thanks, completely deadpan. Her show is sleek and well-rehearsed, especially since this is her side hustle to her full-time job on an oil rig (or so someone once thought).
Kuss handles the intimate room well and her casual, nonchalant delivery is carried off perfectly by her confident air. Her crowd work is successful and she manages to draw out interesting responses from her small audience.
Her material ranges from growing up in rural Australia with some questionable teaching staff to unexpected discoveries on dog walks with her girlfriend and the pitfalls of Facebook marketplace.
This relatable content is where Kuss shines, while her darker material doesn’t land in this particular room. People are unsurprisingly disinclined to laugh at jokes about the kidnapper and rapist Josef Fritzl. Ultimately the show has one too many of these ‘edgy’ punchlines, which fall flat and stagnate the shows pacing.
Her set is mostly classic standup, until introducing a multimedia element in the form of a dick pic. Kuss tells us she was once sent an onslaught of penis pictures (50 to be exact), and decides to get one of them up on the big screen. After warning the audience and giving us permission to close our eyes, the man next to me takes the opportunity, not reopening them until the picture is finally removed from the TV. It’s quite an awkward segue into an otherwise screenless show and the bit itself is more weird than funny.
However, Kuss does bring a refreshing nonchalance to the comedy scene, and fans of dry humour will not leave this show disappointed.
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