The Women's Room 2: Hit Canberra comedy show back for another year

So when these five Canberran comedians agree to talk about the content of their upcoming show, it's refreshing. Or, as comic Trish Hurley, puts it: "We're not Jerry Seinfeld."

"You know what that means, [when they refuse]?" fellow comedian Tanya Lossano says.

"That means they haven't written anything. I can tell you now, we're doing new stuff, and I have written some new stuff - but I have to write some more. And some people work well under pressure and a week out they'll just bang it out. So they've got to go, 'Oh no, I can't possibly say anything'.

This year's Canberra Comedy Festival sees these five comedians - Hurley, Lossano, Jacqui Richards, Sarah Stewart and Sue Stanic - return from last year's sell-out show with The Women's Room 2 ... just add estrogen.

For Hurley, this means living life as a self-diagnosed hypochondriac. Studying nursing does have that effect on people. She says she has just the right amount of knowledge to be frightened for herself and others.

No shade on the nursing career, though. Hurley is a big believer that everyone should work in a nursing home for a year after leaving school. Because if there is one thing a world coming out of a pandemic needs, it's more hypochondriacs.

Meanwhile, Richards is once again going where few comedians have gone before - talking about her life as a widow. It's a topic many wouldn't dare to joke about, let alone laugh at, but with Richards' devilishly dark sense of humour, it just works.

MUST READS:

"It is a very different experience. So the only way to deal with it is to make a comedy about it," she says. "We write comedy about our lives. And that's my life at the moment."

It's interesting how much death comes up in this chat. Stewart - in amongst her observations on social media scams and her 40 years as a midwife - says now she's reached the age of 61, she can't help but start to plan her own funeral.

"Costco has a really good line of cheap coffins," she says. And who doesn't love a bargain?

Meanwhile, Lossano admits sometimes she imagines the eulogies that will eventually be given - both the ones she plans on saying and the ones that will be said at her own funeral. Both types sound more like Oscar acceptance speeches than memorials.

However, it's a different type of ceremony that will probably make an appearance in her set. In between caring for her parents and her children, Lossano marries people in her spare time. Not as a bride, but as a celebrant.

"I did want to flag that if anyone wanted to get married as part of our show get in touch because that would take up about seven minutes of my slot," she says. As she's already noted, there is still part of her set to write, so you'd be doing her a solid.

Rounding out the night - or rather, weaving in and out of it as MC - is Stanic, who will be reflecting on what it's like to parent young children when you were raised by indifferent boomers in the 1980s.

"It's great fun. Although, you get the first act off and they're all done and they start drinking and I won't be done until the very end. So it's like being that bridesmaid who waits till the speeches are over," she says.

"I have been there before - and thank god you weren't at that wedding. Boy did I catch up quickly."

The Women's Room 2 is at the Canberra Theatre on March 18 and 19. Tickets from canberratheatrecentre.com.au. The Canberra Comedy Festival runs from March 16 to 26.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: