Review: Zoë Coombs Marr: Every Single Thing...

Stretching “tell all” comedy to the galaxy-brained limit, Zoë Coombs Marr comes armed with Excel spreadsheets and the promise to tell us about every single thing she can remember ever happening to her. At the start, you almost believe her: the Australian comic is so quick on her feet that we rabbit-hole through formative Ellen DeGeneres memoirs, school library graffiti and a childhood toilet phobia in mere minutes. What could be a random memory pick’n’mix has a sneakily tight throughline, and is anchored by Coombs Marr’s determination, after experiencing suicidal ideation, to quantify exactly what makes life worth the time.

But the spreadsheets giveth and taketh. The narrative loosens when the audience are allowed to choose their own journey through Coombs Marr’s rows and columns, encountering improv gems (featuring Cate Blanchett!) as well as a few dead-ends. This slower pace runs the hour out all too fast, and she has to grip the wheel pretty firmly to steer us into the show’s set-piece finale. Then again, that’s life! Of course you can’t pack a whole person into 60 minutes (or even a spreadsheet), but Coombs Marr’s meta-comedy on identity is both moreish and sneakily deep.