Comedy Republic

A working comedy room in the basement at 231 Bourke Street, opened in 2020, on Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country. Two spaces — the Theatre for ticketed shows and the Bar for cheaper or free ones — running six nights a week year-round, which is the rare thing: most Australian comedy venues are festival rooms that go dark eleven months of the year. Wednesday's Something Good is long-form improv from the cast of Thank God You're Here, with a different guest weekly (Aaron Chen, Wil Anderson, Zoë Coombs-Marr, Guy Montgomery, Rhys Nicholson have all dropped in). Thursday to Saturday is Main Stage, the signature lineup show. Sundays are Laughternoons, a secret-lineup show where you don't know who's on until they walk out. Cheap Tuesdays in the bar are where new comedians try material and established ones try new sets. Between MICF runs, the room hosts solo hours from much of the working Australian comedy scene — Geraldine Hickey, Claire Hooper, Lloyd Langford, Cassie Workman, Damian Callinan, Laura Davis, Hannah Camilleri, Greg Larsen, Kate Dolan, Frankie McNair, and the Palawa comedian Tarsh Jago among recent and upcoming bookings.