Wellbeing tips for surviving a gruelling festival season Part 2: Melbourne International Comedy Festival

How do comedians, clowns, cabaret artists and festival directors juggle self-care with the rigours of MICF?
Melbourne International Comedy Festival logo 2025. A bright and colourful stylised image of a jocular human-animal hybrid in yellow and blue against a bright red background.

The juggernaut of jocularity that is Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) is already well underway, with over 1000 performers – embracing every iteration of comedy imaginable, from stand-up and improv to circus and cabaret and more – performing 690 shows on 182 stages across 133 venues throughout Melbourne until Sunday 20 April.

ArtsHub has already begun publishing a range of MICF reviews alongside our regular reviews coverage from across the country, and having renewed our partnership with the Comedy Festival, we’ll also be publishing highlights from MICF’s Funny Tonne emerging reviewers program as well.

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Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in 2020. In 2021 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association. Most recently, Richard received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts