 |
Class Clowns is Melbourne International Comedy Festival's development program for young people around the country.
| |
Class Clowns is Melbourne International Comedy Festival's development program for young people around the country.
After a competition has been held across the country, heats, semi-finals and then finals are run in each Australian state and territory, with the winners of the state finals competing in the Grand Final in Melbourne. The Grand Final is held during Melbourne International Comedy Festival at the Forum Theatre (previously held at Melbourne Town Hall and Malthouse Theatre).
Professional comedians who have hosted the grand final include Tom Gleeson and Nath Valvo. Special guest comedians perform a headline set; in the past, these have included Peter Helliar, Tripod, Ross Noble, and Judith Lucy.
Notable comedians who have performed as entrants in Class Clowns include, Josh Thomas, Tom Ballard, Joel Creasey, Rhys Nicholson, Aaron Chen, Velvet Winter, Lauren Duong, Mia Timpano, and Imaan Hadchiti.
| Year | Winner | Other |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Fat Chicks Bite Back (Jess Shanahan, Hayley Robinson, Paul Saunders & Adam Weller) |
|
| 2001 | Paul Saunders | |
| 2002 | Goibon Hanastende | |
| 2003 | Fred Sterer |
|
| 2004 | Stephen Brooks |
|
| 2005 | Imaan Hadchiti and Tobey Duncan | |
| 2006 | Adam Knox |
|
| 2007 | 'H2WOAH!' Jacob Machin and James Seamark |
|
| 2008 | Tom John |
|
| 2009 | Neel Kolhatkar |
|
| 2010 | Matthew Ford |
|
| 2011 | Tom Matthews |
|
| 2012 | Aaron Chen |
|
| 2013 | James Warren |
|
| 2014 | Gergor Tarrant |
|
| 2015 | Will McKenna |
|
| 2016 | Lauren Duong |
|
| 2017 | Daniel Reeve |
|
| 2018 | Liam Adam, Carlin Carruth & Kyle Bennett as 'Awkward' |
|
| 2019 | Patti Fawcett |
|
| 2020 | NA due to COVID19 | NA due to COVID19 |
| 2021 | Dhruv Rao |
|
| 2022 | Erin Almeida |
|
| 2023 | Kate Kindleysides |
The Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) is the largest stand-alone comedy festival and the second-largest international comedy festival in the world. First held in 1987, it takes place annually in Melbourne over four weeks, typically starting in March and running through to April. The Melbourne Town Hall has served as the festival hub, but performances are held in many venues throughout the city.
Nina Margarita Conti is a British actress, comedian, and ventriloquist.
Michael Chamberlin is a Melbourne-based stand up comedian. Along with fellow comedian Charlie Pickering, Chamberlin was a co-creator of Melbourne comedy room Stagetime.
Raw Comedy, stylised as RAW Comedy, is an Australian annual competition for emerging stand-up comedians held by Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Nick Sun is an Australian stand-up comedian. He is of Nepalese extraction, but chooses to eschew obvious cultural stereotyping in his act, favouring a style that has been described as "unhinged", "offensive" "nihilistic" and "self-destructive."
The culture of Melbourne, the capital of the Australian state of Victoria, encompasses the city's artistic, culinary, literary, musical, political and social elements. Since its founding as a British settlement in 1835, Melbourne has been culturally influenced by European culture, particularly that of the British Isles. During the 1850s Victorian gold rush and in the decades that immediately followed, immigrants from many other parts of the world, notably China and the Americas, helped shape Melbourne's culture. Over time, Melbourne has become the birthplace of a number of unique cultural traits and institutions, and today it is one of the world's most multicultural cities.
The New Zealand International Comedy Festival is a comedy festival in both Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand, run by the New Zealand Comedy Trust and held across three weeks during April and May. From its beginnings in 1993 as a 2-day event, the festival has developed into a major nationwide event with a total attendance of over 100,000 people each year.
Thomas Colin Ballard is an Australian comedian, broadcaster, actor, and writer. Starting out in radio, he became known as a Triple J host, along with his friend Alex Dyson, over seven years with the station. He his known for his stand-up comedy, as a host of podcasts, and as television presenter, such as the 2017 ABC Television comedy show Tonightly with Tom Ballard. He is author of the 2022 book I, Millennial: One Snowflake's Screed Against Boomers, Billionaires and Everything Else.
Joshua Michael Thomas is an Australian comedian, actor, and writer. In 2005, he won the Melbourne International Comedy Festival's Raw Comedy Competition. He has since appeared on television numerous times, including as a regular and Generation Y team captain on Network 10's Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation. In 2013, Thomas created the award-winning ABC2 and Pivot television series Please Like Me, which he also co-wrote and starred in.
Thomas Cotter is an American comedian who currently resides in Stony Point, New York, known for being the runner-up of the seventh season of America's Got Talent, losing to Olate Dogs.
Comedy is a genre that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term originated in ancient Greece: In Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by political satire performed by comic poets in theaters. The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance pitting two groups, ages, genders, or societies against each other in an amusing agon or conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old". A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions posing obstacles to his hopes. In this struggle, the youth then becomes constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to resort to ruses which engender dramatic irony, which provokes laughter.
Australian comedy refers to the comedy and humour performed in or about Australia or by the people of Australia. Australian humour can be traced to various origins, and today is manifested in a diversity of cultural practices and pursuits. Writers like Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson helped to establish a tradition of laconic, ironic and irreverent wit in Australian literature, while Australian politicians and cultural stereotypes have each proved rich sources of comedy for artists from poet C. J. Dennis to satirist Barry Humphries to iconic film maker Paul Hogan, each of whom have given wide circulation to Australian slang.
Philip Burgers is an American writer, comedy performer, director and clown teacher. He is best known for his character Dr Brown.
Nishant Kumar is a British stand-up comedian, television presenter, and podcast host. He became known as the host of satirical comedy The Mash Report, now known as Late Night Mash. He has also presented BBC Radio 4 Extra's topical comedy show Newsjack, the Comedy Central series Joel & Nish vs The World, the BBC Radio 4 programme The News Quiz and Hello America on Quibi. Since May 2023, he has been the co-host of the political podcast Pod Save the UK.
Tegan Marie Higginbotham is an Australian comedian, writer, and actress.
Suzi Ruffell is a British comedian, writer, and actress.
Neel Kolhatkar is an Australian comedian, YouTuber and actor. As of October 2024, Kolhatkar has received 91.1 million views on his YouTube channel.
Nina Oyama is an Australian comedian, writer, actress and director. She is well known for her roles in Utopia, Taskmaster Australia, and Deadloch.
Tom Walker is an Australian comedian, podcaster, clown, mime, improvisor, and Twitch streamer.
Aaron Chen is an Australian comedian and actor from Sydney.