by ****1/2 (out of 5)
Zoë Coombs Marr received the top prize in Melbourne in 2016 for “Trigger Warning,” the show that presented her in character as a misogynist male stand-up named “Dave” to lampoon the disparate standards for men in comedy. Her 2018 show presented Marr as herself while still playfully poking fun at the conventions of stand-up and specials themselves, and begat her own Amazon Original, Bossy Bottom. Now Marr is finally ready to go deep on her own life. With the unmistakably implausibly ridiculous premise of talking about everything she’s ever experienced, and covering it all in just an hour. Part of the fun obviously in watching how she sets this up. Another part is knowing that she has built into the hour an interactive aspect allowing the audience to steer her into specific stories or memories. And a third part of the fun is finding out why she undertook this enterprise to begin with. What does all of this have to do with toilet frogs? How much of life is just freestyling? Comedy has come a long way since Marr had to hide her queerness to fit in with a bunch of real-life Daves, and Marr has come a long way, too. And now she can enjoy remembering the journey along with us.
