This Show is a Joke!

If your kids have never been to the theatre before, do them a favour and make this their first experience. It’s something they’ll never forget.

ABOUT THE SHOW

"Why did the chicken cross the road? To see This Show is a Joke!"

Hold onto your cowpats! After nearly two decades of seriously silly nonsense, Matt and Rich (aka The Listies) have whipped up their most ridiculous show yet — a turbo-charged mash-up of fan favourites, slapstick, songs, and a fresh batch of brand-new, freshly-hatched gags. It’s a comedy extravaganza for kidults aged 5 to 5 million (dinosaurs welcome).

Let's find out how many LOLs Australia’s favourite kids’ comedians can squeeze into ONE HOUR!!!  

Expect:

• The world’s ugliest baby
• The solar system’s silliest cowboys 
• The Universe’s best toilet paper cannons
• More bubbles than have ever existed in the history of history
• Even more bananas
• Literally no exaggerations
• *Also a possible cameo from Batman (we texted him, fingers crossed)

Hot on the heels of their brand new joke book (This Book Is a Joke, Scholastic 2025) and its sequel (This Book Is a Joke Too, 2026), The Listies bring the spirit of the gag page to the stage with chaos, cardboard props, questionable costumes and zero educational value (although, knowing teachers, they’ll find something).

REVIEWS

★★★★½ “...an hour of rambunctious fun so clever, and so perfectly attuned to its audience, it wouldn’t surprise me if The Listies became the first children’s comedy act to win top gong at the Melbourne Comedy Festival.” 
Cameron Woodhead, The Age

“In short... hilarious.”
Sydney Morning Herald

“The only downside of seeing The Listies is that kids may be disappointed the next time they go to the theatre because it isn’t always this awesomely excellent.”
Sometimes Melbourne

 “When I saw The Listies, it affected my thinking because I really related to the comedy craft they were exercising...it got me a little bit excited to realise that when you are performing for kids, it’s just as delicate and just as sophisticated.”
Frank Woodley, The Australian

“If the Wiggles are the Eagles then The Listies are the Sex Pistols.”
Dave O’Neil, The Age

“Australian duo The Listies have conquered children’s comedy through deep respect for their audience, with a focus on the subversion of the adult desire for control — with hilarious results.” Sue Giles, The Australian

 “The Listies know all the right buttons to push to make children shriek with laughter.”
The Guardian

 “If your kids have never been to the theatre before, do them a favour and make this their first experience. It’s something they will never forget.”
The Scotsman

ABOUT THE LISTIES

For well over 35 million years (give or take), The Listies have been spreading laughter across the globe (including the oceans). Their shows have become a staple of Australian family theatre and a hilarious first step into live performance for generations of kids and their grown-ups.

The Listies, aka Richard Higgins and Matt Kelly, formed during the latest Ice Age (2008) to perform absurdist comedy to elderly people (i.e. 18+) but switched to full time kids comedy in 2011. They have never looked back (plus the hours are heaps better).

To date, they have claimed to have written 10-ish award-winning & critically acclaimed live shows, collaborated with most major theatre companies and festivals in Australia, toured three continents, recorded FOUR albums, and published four books with Penguin and two more with Scholastic are the way. Though we only have their word for it. Oh, and their PODCAST has over 460,000 downloads but most of that could be Matt’s Dad trying to work out how to use the internet.

On screen you can see them iview ABC with their shows Art Blast, and What’s With The Listies, and also occasionally in the background of outside weather broadcasts. They have loads of vids on their youtube page as well as a strong social media presence.

They performed over 120 shows a year to tens of thousands of people all over Australia and the UK. Nearly all of them stayed awake and only some of them vomited. Recently, in what may have been an administrative error, they won the Best Children’s Show at the Melbourne Fringe Festival.

In the past they have received a Sydney Theatre Award, ‘The HarperCollins Best Designed Children’s Fiction Book’, and the Best Independent show (Golden Gibbo Award) at Melbourne International Comedy Festival, (and they are still the only kids act to have been nomed for the Comedy Festival’s ‘Best Show’ award). They have watched LITERALLY every episode of the Great British Bake Off.