NZ Taskmaster winner Melanie Bracewell comes to south Bristol on the brink of what reports are suggesting could be spring, specifically to the Hen and Chicken studio on the heels of a successful UK tour in 2024. This time around, she’s touring her sold-out Edinburgh Fringe  show Attack of the Melanie Bracewell. After a ten minute set – wearing a fantastic sparkly short suit – she moves aside to introduce her support, fellow Kiwi comic Becky Umbers. Umbers is bubbly and fun, describing her distinctive voice as sounding like someone ‘choking on a kazoo,’ and telling a traumatic story of laser hair removal gone wrong and anecdotes from her adventures as a teaching assistant in East London. After an interval, Bracewell returns for the second half. 

I wasn’t familiar with her work prior to the show, but Bracewell comes to the UK with an impressive pedigree, having been writing, presenting and performing stand-up in New Zealand and Australia for nearly a decade. It’s obvious by her ease onstage that she knows what she’s doing; despite the audience being surprisingly tipsy and animated for a mid-week show, her stage presence and crowd work is supremely assured and her comebacks are rapid-fire.

The show centres around her loss of and quest to recapture her AirPods, sadly lost on a day out in Wellington. It’s a compelling and light-hearted hook for a show, and the hour flies by, filled with inventive, solid gags and big laughs throughout. Her description of accidentally eating a hot cross bun with a rusty nail in it (‘For that extra little bit of Jesus’) is stellar, as is her reflections on her relationship, comparing their spooning preferences to a cutlery drawer – her boyfriend prefers to be the little spoon, sleeping horizontally down at the end of the bed (‘While I’m up top with the other guys.’) We encounter confusion as the AirPods are active but very far apart (‘How big is this guys head?’) and intrigue as we hone in on the culprit at a Wellington towing company. Later, we watch her attempt to confront the alleged thief, aided by her fellow NZ comedian Urzila Carlson who films their mission. The climactic confrontation(s) walk the line perfectly between dramatic payoff and the hilarious self-sabotage of Bracewell’s attempts at reconciliation. 

The trend in stand-up of an often traumatic narrative peppered with jokes has been done to death, and is itself extremely hard to do well – Bracewell’s show reflects how silliness and quality gags are still the lynchpins of a good show., as is the joy of laughing along with a comedian clearly having an excellent time. The crowd – peppered with Aussies and Kiwis – loved every moment, as did I. 

Melanie Bracewell is on tour in the UK until the 9th of March. Tickets available here.