Zoë Coombs Marr is an Australian comedian who won Best Newcomer at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 2012, then returned four years later to win Best Show in Melbourne and receive a Best Show nomination in Edinburgh in 2016 for Trigger Warning, which she performed in drag character as a misogynistic male comedian named Dave. Coombs Marr brought Dave out of his “coma” in 2023 to comment obliviously on everything he’d missed during #MeToo and “cancel culture.” The show she did in between those efforts, Bossy Bottom, was released as an Amazon Original on Prime Video in the spring of 2020, just in time for pandemic lockdown viewing. Now she’s back with a new show that promises to talk about “Every Single Thing In My Whole Entire Life” and she sat down with me over Zoom to talk about how her early efforts, both comedic and dramatic in Sydney, coalesced into a stand-up career, the importance of creating “Dave,” and how her stunt marriage to comedian Rhys Nicholson may have inadvertently prompted Hannah Gadsby to begin writing her game-changing show, Nanette.

There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

Janine Harouni is a Staten Island native who began her stand-up comedy career in earnest only after moving to London, England, in 2012. Harouni experienced her first viral success as one-third of a sketch group called Muriel whose YouTube fame prompted deals with both the BBC and Quibi, and she’s also appeared onscreen in a recurring role on ITV’s Buffering and a much more supporting role on the big screen in The Batman. Her first solo show at the Edinburgh Fringe, Stand Up With Janine Harouni (Please Remain Seated) directed by the late Adam Brace, earned her a Best Newcomer nomination in 2019. She returned four years later with a more personal and provoking hour about her impending motherhood, Man’oushe, which earned her a Best Show nomination from the Fringe in 2023. Harouni has taken Man’oushe back home to the States for its first big American tour, and sat down with me between shows to talk about her life, career, family, and what she has learned along the way.

There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

Dave Merheje is an award-winning Canadian stand-up comedian and actor who co-starred in the Hulu series, Ramy, and recently co-starred on the big screen opposite Daisy Ridley in the film, Sometimes I Think About Dying, which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and is available now to buy or stream. As a stand-up, Dave won the Just For Laughs 2011 Homegrown Comic competition, made it to the finals of the 2013 Seattle International Comedy Competition, and won the Juno Award for Comedy Album of the Year in 2019 for his special, Good Friend Bad Grammar. He also had a special included in Netflix’s Comedians of the World showcase. Dave joined me over Zoom for a wide-ranging conversation that touched upon forming friendships with other comedians in a competitive industry, which not only helped him land a role on Gerry Dee’s Mr. D but also Ramy Youssef’s Ramy, how it feels to see his friends succeed, what it means to make specials or shows just for his native Canadian audience and what it meant to include his family in his Crave special, I Love You Habibi. We also dished on some of his earliest gigs, which included a regular on-air presence on MTV and landing his first TV credit in Australia years before he ever ventured Down Under. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!