Dark, shining, and brave there is no comedian better suited for strange times. Fresh from years touring with the biggest names on the UK and international circuit, Perth comedian Laura Davis returns home after a decade of being based in Melbourne and in London. An Australian debut, If This Is It is a show for current times.
Since making their name in 2008 as a national finalist in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival RAW competition, Davis has returned to MICF twelve times with ten different solo shows, garnering a reputation as one of the most talented and distinctive acts performing at the festival. Davis’ sixth offering, Ghost Machine, won both the Golden Gibbo and the Melbourne Fringe Best Comedy Award in 2015. Marco Polo, Davis’ 2016 show for MICF and the Adelaide Fringe Festival, won the prestigious Comedy Channel Moosehead Award.
This year, Davis will return to the Edinburgh Fringe with their newest show Albatross, having also taken it to the MICF. In 2023, Davis returned to MICF and the Edinburgh Fringe with their show: Well Don’t Just Stand There Dancing. Having debuted at Edinburgh Fringe in 2017 with Cake in the Rain and returned in 2018 with a reprise of Ghost Machine – both shows received critical acclaim and ran at London’s Soho Theatre. They returned to the Fringe in 2019 with Better Dead than a Coward, which also received press accolades. Davis’ 2022 show, If This Is It, received a nomination for the Most Outstanding Show at MICF, and received further acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe. The Scotsman lauded Davis’, “considerable elan, making series points with wonderfully silly flourishes.” and The List praised Davis’ ability to have “the audience firmly in their palm, refusing to hold back.”
Davis is an experienced comedy director, most recently having worked with James Nokise and Grace Jarvis. Davis was a writer on the seventh and eighth seasons of ABC TV’s Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell, Australia’s long-running satirical news and current affairs program, and has also performed stand-up on ABC TV’s Comedy Up Late, MICF Upfront Gala and ABC Comedy Next Gen Special plus the New Zealand Comedy Festival Gala 2020.
Davis has also been a guest on several of the UK’s leading podcasts, including Wilosophy Podcast with Will Anderson, Be Honest with Jojo Sutherland and Bruce Devlin, The Adam Buxton Podcast, The Comedian’s Comedian Podcast and The Guilty Feminist.
