Pundemonium: One Hour of Solid Puns

What do Shakespeare, Eminem, Dorothy Parker, Daily Mirror sub-editors and your dad have in common? The love of puns!
We’re opening up a can of words (oof!) on 9 November and inviting some of our punniest friends to the Wheeler Centre to unleash their most gasp-inducing, groan-generating and perhaps even mind-altering feats of paronomasia. (That’s a fancy word for ‘pun’; if you can’t take the heat, get out of the quiptchen.)
Come along to hear brilliant displays of wit, whimsy and wisecrack as we scale the heights of the lowest form of humour. Two teams of pun-o-holics will battle it out in fast and loose rounds, hosted by punmaster Richard Higgins. Does Melbourne put the ‘no’ in ‘paronomasia’? Or are we truly a City of Witerature?
Treat yourself to a riotous night of pun and games. Because you’re word it.
Featuring

Richard Higgins is a comedy writer and performer. He is one half of comedy duo The Listies, with Matt Kelly. The most recent show they made was called ‘Hamlet: Prince of Skidmark’ to the dismay of English teachers throughout Australia. Richard was co-convener of the alternative comedy an... Read more

Mel Campbell is a freelance journalist and critic who co-hosts the fortnightly literature and culture podcast The Rereaders. She is a columnist on writing at Overland magazine, and a university lecturer and writer-for-hire on film, TV and media. Her first book was the nonfiction investigation Out of... Read more

David Astle is a full-time word nerd. You may know his loud shirts from SBS’s Letters and Numbers. Or his black-and-white boxes in Friday’s Age. He’s also the author of Wordburger (How to be a champion puzzler in 20 quick bites), plus Riddledom, Puzzled and Cluetopia. His favourite word is ‘... Read more

Elizabeth Flux is an award-winning writer and editor whose fiction and nonfiction work has been widely published. She is a judge for the 2019 Award for and Unpublished Manuscript for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and is an editor for Melbourne City of Literature’s ‘Reading Victoriaâ€... Read more

Since emigrating from Perth to Melbourne, Xavier has been an active stand-up comedian, writer and performer. He has performed in eleven Melbourne International comedy festivals, three Melbourne Fringes, two Adelaide Fringes, four Perth Fringe Worlds, two Perth International Comedy Festivals and two ... Read more
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