Demi Lardner: Look What You Made Me Do (MICF)

Demi Lardner throws a lot of impish absurdity at the wall with her show Look What You Made Me Do. And I'd say at least 97% of it sticks.

The winner of a handful of local and international comedy festival awards, Lardner demonstrates that the plaudits are well and truly justified with this cornucopia of thoroughly random but consistently amusing tomfoolery, ranging from bizarre but bang-on observations (you'll never feel the same way about using a Dyson Airblade hand dryer) to dad jokes that are presented with such invention and conviction that they attain a kind of surreal majesty.

Twenty-something Lardner plays forty-something Gavin, a suburban wanker trapped in his basement with only the voice of Sandra, an insurance claims adjuster, firing off questions and feeding him straight lines on the other end of the phone, to keep him company.

But this structure is the flimsiest of conceits. Look What You Made Me Do is really about Lardner eliciting laughs through wonderfully gawky physicality, verbal kookiness, a winning lack of polish (the kind that probably comes from plenty of polishing) and audience engagement that gives the often-dreadful (and dreaded) participation portion of a show a good name.

While this show is undeniably batshit, this chaos is guided by structural order. Lardner cleverly connects many of her seemingly disconnected bits of business, revealing a shrewd comic sensibility beneath the surface of her stream of consciousness; there's method to this maverick comedian's madness.

Demi Lardner presents Look What You Made Me Do, till April 23 at Melbourne Town Hall, part of Melbourne International Comedy Festival.