Melbourne Fringe Festival 2025 reviews: Chelsea Heaney, I Swear I’m Funny; Casey Lorae, La Folie After Dark; Dylan Murphy and Tom Henry Jones, In the Dark; Isabelle Carney, The Moment; A Daylight Conn

COMEDY

Isabelle Carney | The Moment

Festival Hub: Trades Hall – Evatt Room, until October 12

Isabelle Carney performs at Trades Hall until October 12. Credit: Pat Mooney

“There’s a method to the madness” is the adage that best encapsulates Isabelle Carney’s new hour of standup. Like a calm yet chaotic pinball ricocheting off various obstacles, Carney eschews segues for non sequiturs as she bounces helter-skelter from intricately constructed analogies and pithy songs with humorous through lines to elaborate exposés, aided by audiovisual prompts and poems of varying lengths – each more uproarious than the last.

An artfully assembled, old-school television is Carney’s accomplice onstage, and blares to life at key moments to great effect, bolstered by magnificent light design. Fuelled