UTG @ Melbourne International Comedy Festival: Celia Pacquola – ‘Let Me Know How It All Works Out…’

Comic: Celia Pacquola
Show: Let Me Know How It All Works Out…
Venue: Swiss Club

Celia Pacquola is one of Australia’s most highly regarded female comedians. A star of the stand-up scene, radio and the silver screen both at home and abroad in the UK, Pacqoula has ridden her razor sharp wit to some dizzying heights and has experienced her fair share of soul crushing lows. Celia is also a frequent visitor of psychics and thinks Morgan Freeman is a beer that lives in her fridge. These are just a few of the facts that you’ll learn when you witness her gloriously dishevelled new show, Let Me Know How It All Works Out…

A show about the all-too-familiar feeling of uncertainty that underpins much of the early-30s experience, and her efforts to overcome that uncertainty by visiting psychics, fortune tellers and palm readers, Let Me Know How It All Works Out… finds the otherwise rationally minded Pacqoula fighting a losing battle with an irrational desire to know what happens next. Fortunately for Celia and indeed for the audience in attendance, that battle makes for glorious comedic matter.

A gifted stand-up with a delivery style that is truly all her own, Pacquola offers her unique and utterly hilarious perspectives on deeply personal matters, such as the break-up of a long-term relationship, a fear of being barren and a near paralyzing fear of the unknown and in the process of doing so provides fascinating insights into the complexities of the human condition. While these are heavy topics to cover in a comedy show, the sheer energy and enthusiasm Pacquola puts into tackling them, coupled with her decidedly off-kilter delivery ensure that a constant stream of laughs is had throughout the show.

Breaking up the heavier emotional material with seemingly random digressions into topics as diverse as the surprisingly low number of pop songs focused upon the sexual degradation males, her love of the US television show Hoarders and what happens to the other side of a double bed when you’re single, Pacquola proves herself a queen of pacing and the result is a superbly crafted hour of comedy that leaves the audience engrossed for its duration.

Highlighted by a series of stories focused upon the existential crisis brought about by her break up and a particularly shocking revelation from a palm reader named Tony, Let Me Know How It All Works Out…takes an undeniably ‘human’ approach that results in you not only laughing your ass off, but feeling better about your own idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies in the process. Highly recommended.

SCORE: 4/5

Celia Pacquola’s Let Me Know How It All Works Out is on now at the Swiss Club. A complete set of dates and ticket details can be found here

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