Disruptive Comedy: Breaking Barriers with Laughter

A five-time Gold Logie nominee, Adam Hills is one of Australia’s best-known comedians. He is adored across Australia for his iconic role as host of ABC TV’s music-orientated quiz show Spicks and Specks and for his talk show, Adam Hills Tonight. Across the pond Adam has likewise become a household name with his talk show on Channel Four, The Last Leg. Comedy is such a massive part of Adam’s life that he wrote a whole book about it, his memoir Best Foot Forward went on to become a Times best seller. Adam is also the author of the early-adolescent book series Rockstar Detectives – these books are not memoirs.

Lara Ricote is a Mexican-American-Venezuelan stand up comic who has won the Best Newcomer Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2022 for her critically acclaimed show GRL/LATNX/DEF and won the Funny Stage Women Award in London in 2021. She’s based in Amsterdam, NL and has been working in London for the last year. Since then she’s been on Comedy Central, Channel 4 shows, E4 shows, and Dave panel shows. She has performed all over the UK, Europe and Argentina, in both Spanish and in English. The Guardian describes her as a “razor-sharp goofball,” and her show as a “riotously inventive show that blurs notions of race, gender and disability.”

Alexandra Hudson, living in East Ballina, on unceded Bundjalung country, belonging to the Nyangbul people, made her comedy debut in July 2020. Alexandra took out joint first place in the National Final of the Raw Comedy Competition at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in April 2022. Alexandra delightfully staggers and stumbles through life's experiences, and in doing so stumbled onto a comedy stage. Alexandra shares entertaining little musings about her experiences as a disabled woman and her observations about the mostly foreign non-disabled world she lives in. From Alexandra’s perspective she often finds it is the non-disabled who are the oddities, and she takes joy in tipping things on their head. The non-disabled give her much to ponder in her daily life and are great comedic fodder.

Loveable, laconic and a little bit dark, Oliver has been cracking jokes about living with a disability for over 7 years. Originally hailing from Albury, Oliver has played all the major venues in his local area - the Wagga Comedy Festival, the Riverina Comedy Club and the Ulladulla Comedy Festival. To balance this level of glamour, he has also performed at the Hollywood Improv, as well as comedy clubs in Dallas and Seattle. He has been lucky enough to be a guest on Dylan Alcott's podcat 'ListenAble'. In 2022, Oliver made his Melbourne International Comedy Festival solo debut with his hit sold out show- 'Roll with it'. Excitingly, he will return to the festival 2023 with his new show 'Wheels of Fortune' When not wearing his comedian hat, Oliver is a consultant and keynote speaker, openly sharing his experience of living with a disability and is definitely not inspirational.