Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Wednesday 09 November
7:30 PM - 8:30 PM
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
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 and performance night, The Last Tuesday Society, with Bron Batten. He recently published his first book with Matt Kelly, Ickypedia: A Dictionary of Disgusting New Words. It's a best smeller.
He is also a Clown Doctor at the Royal Children's Hospital, Dr Noodles, most Doctors have a PhD, he has an MsG.
Mel Campbell
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 Shape: Debunking Myths about Fashion and Fit (2013), and she’s currently co-writing a second romantic comedy novel with Anthony Morris; their first was The Hot Guy (2017).
David Astle
Alias DA on Friday's puzzle page in the Age, David Astle is a lifelong wordsmith, writer, columnist and ABC broadcaster. His latest book - Rewording The Brain - explores the neural benefits of crosswords. You can catch him on Evenings most weeknights, or flapping a dictionary on SBS's Celebrity Letters & Numbers.
View ProfileElizabeth Flux
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 Victoria’ project. In 2017 she was the recipient of a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship, was a judge for the Scribe Prize, was the winner of the inaugural Feminartsy Fiction Prize, and her short story ‘One’s Company’ was selected for Best Australian Stories 2017.
Xavier Michelides
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 Sydney Comedy Festivals.
He appeared on Rove, SBS's 'Live @ Bella Union' and the new series of 20 to One. He has also written for and acted in the kids show You’re Skitting Me.
Xavier was nominated for Best Comedy at the Perth International Comedy Festival 2011, Perth Fringe World 2011 and a Golden Gibbo at the 2011 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.