With less of a structured concept than her more recent Melbourne International Comedy Festival outings (there are no spreadsheets and minimal, though undeniably appealing, props this time around), The Splash Zone sees local favourite and MICF veteran Zoë Coombs Marr dive into the topic of chats. Yes, this show sees the gifted gabster spend over an hour talking about… well, talking. (In true Coombs Marr style there’s a distraction – this time about the platinum comic fodder that was Raygun – which skewers the timekeeping somewhat.)
There’s a through thread about an experience on a train as a tongue-tied youngster that she – again in typical style – plants, veers away from and then returns to when it’s time to neatly wrap up the entire performance. There are also some jolly bits of audience banter, asides about IGAs and England, and a recollection of the time some MAGAs came to her show. Yes, she was as stunned by this as no doubt most of her regular audiences would be. The serious nugget beneath all of this is the desire, no, the desperate need shared by the entire world right now to talk… to keep the lines of communication open, even with the brainwashed who think everyone else has been brainwashed.
Read: Comedy review: Gillian Cosgriff, Fresh New Worries, The Show Room, MICF 2025
The world is going mad, says Coombs-Marr, but we’ve just got to keep the conversations going. I mean, she’s not wrong.
Tickets: $25-$42
Zoë Coombs Marr: The Splash Zone will be performed in the Powder Room at Melbourne Town Hall until 20 April 2025 as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF 2025).
