REVIEW: Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun

Australia’s silliest duffers, Aunty Donna, are currently conquering the world with their new Netflix special, Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun. 

We don’t really do reviews here at Holding Steadfast anymore, but when I saw this pop up on Netflix, I knew I was going to have to dust off my thesaurus and my pretentious ‘reviewer’ glasses, and write this one up. If you haven’t heard of Aunty Donna before, well then brace yourself… you are going to hear a lot about them in the coming months.

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REVIEW: Joe Rogan – Triggered

UFC commentator and podcast pioneer Joe Rogan reminds everybody how he got so famous in the first place, with his hilarious new Netflix Comedy special Triggered.

Regular readers of this site would know that I’m a pretty big fan of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. In fact, ‘pretty big fan’ is probably playing it down a fair bit. Yet, if I’m asked to rattle off a list of my favourite stand-up comedians, or asked to rank comedians in any way (I’m not sure who is asking me to do these things, but still), Rogan’s name rarely makes the list. It seems I underrate and undervalue his stand-up abilities, and when one takes a look at his back catalog of work, this is completely unfair with no real basis behind it.

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George Carlin’s New Album

REVIEW: George Carlin – I Kinda Like It When a Lotta People Die.

On September 9 and 10, 2001, the great George Carlin recorded a comedy special that was to air shortly after on HBO. As with most of George’s material, it contained some dark social commentary, some of which revolved around the premise of him “kinda liking it when a lotta people die,” which was also the title of the special.  The world-changing events that took place the very next day rendered the special impossible to air – for fairly obvious reasons – and much of the other material found its way onto a re-filmed special called Complaints and Grievances. Carlin seemed rather fond of both the bit and the title, and so planned to reuse it in a 2004 special. Then Hurricane Katrina hit.

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REVIEW: Jim Jefferies – Freedumb

Freedumb sees Australia’s greatest stand-up comedy export Jim Jefferies return to Netflix, to tell all the people who were offended by his famous gun routine, to fuck off.

Since the last time Jim Jefferies did a Netflix special, his fame has risen quite a few notches. Before his last special Bare hit Netflix, Jim was a world renowned star in comedy circles, but he had very little recognition elsewhere. Once Bare was released, and Jim’s opinions on gun control (and women) went extraordinarily viral, he became known by people from all walks of life, and as he explains in this special, that hasn’t always been good fun.

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6 of the Best ‘Just For Netflix’ Comedy Specials

Netflix gets plenty of credit for redefining how and when we consume our television, but it’s also been instrumental in creating better access to stand-up comedy, particularly for international viewers. Aside from providing a substantial back catalogue of Comedy Central and independent specials, they’ve also found success in producing their own original exclusive content, and most of the comedy world’s biggest names have gotten on board.

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Top 5 Picks for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival

As various make-shift stages and venues pop up across Melbourne and the funny people start rolling in for the 3oth Annual Melbourne International Comedy Festival, we look at some of the shows you should check out over the next month.

A few people have asked me for some show recommendations for the 2016 Melbourne International Comedy festival, so I thought this would be the platform to give them. Granted, nobody asked me to write an article about it, and they were probably only asking me to be polite in the first place, but I’m still giving them.

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