Tom Ballard
Melbourne Fringe (jks: a comedy(?))
Trades Hall
Oct 1, 2025 to Oct 12, 2025
Various
$10 - $40
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Live
Berwick & Brisbane
As seen on Deadloch, Spicks & Specks and (weirdly) Deal or No Deal. Don’t miss your chance to see award winning idiot Tom Ballard live!
Since becoming the youngest ever winner of the Melbourne Comedy Festival’s Best Newcomer Award, Tom has performed stand-up all over the world, including at JFL Montreal and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
jks: a comedy(?)
Melbourne Fringe
Longlisted for the 2025 Griffin Award.
A weekly stand-up gig. Backstage.
In between their sets, a group of comedians are laughing, bitching and talking shit.
It’s all fun and games – until they hear the news. A comedy legend has died. Depending on who you ask, he either leaves behind a lifetime of laughter, or a legacy of bigotry and pain. Or maybe both. Or neither.
The comics get stuck in: was this guy actually funny, or just embarrassing? Is being “funny” all that matters, anyway? What’s even the point of telling jokes? How much harm (or good) can they ever do? How dark and fucked up can you go? Who can say what – and who decides?
As the gig carries on in the background, these idiots go to war on The Big Question: what is comedy even for?
A new (funny) play about what it means to be funny.
Written by Tom Ballard (Deadloch, Tonightly).
Directed by Ben Russell (Thank God You’re Here, The Grub).
Longlisted for the 2025 Griffin Playwriting Award and the recipient of a Fringe Fund Cash to Create actors, including Tom Ballard himself, Kevin Hofbauer (Hour of the Wolf, The Commeuppance), Jordan Barr (triple j Weekend Breakfast), Tiana Hogben (Thank God You’re Here, Summer Love) and beloved stand-up powerhouse Nicky Barry (Corey White’s Roadmap to Paradise).
Winner – Best Comedy Performer, Helpmann Award 2016
Winner – Best Local Show, Sydney Comedy Festival 2017
“Genuine comic gold.” ★★★★1/2 ArtsHub, 2024
“A raucous performance that is as political as it is personal.” ★★★★★ Time Out, 2023
“A relentless whirl of opinion, silliness, and increasingly bad-taste jokes against those who most deserve it.” ★★★★½ Chortle, 2023
“A very strong hour of acerbic comedy with a socialist bent.” ★★★★ The Age, 2023
“Absolutely packed with elite gags” ★★★★ The Scotsman, 2023
“Tom Ballard runs on anger.” The Australian
