Women Like Us - Armidale

“Goddesses of Comedy” return to Armidale!

Women Like Us’ middle aged mouthy mamas of mirth, Mandy Nolan and Ellen Briggs have just returned from Adelaide Fringe Festival where they performed two sold out shows and garnered two 5 star reviews from Festival Reviewers being officially declared ‘Goddesses’ by the Weekend Notes Writer who asserted that ‘everything they say and do is the absolute word of sacred truth!’

Glamadelaide declared the audience ‘barely had time to draw breath between the hearty laughs’ and ‘it’s not just women who love this hilarious crowd pleaser.’

With over 120 shows at festivals from Adelaide to Perth, Sydney and Melbourne, a tour planned for New Zealand and the UK, the girls especially love performing in regional areas and are heading to Armidale for one night only on Friday 23^rd August.

With 7 children between them they’re as adept at delivering laughs as they are babies, and the two solo stand ups are renowned for their rapid fire stand up. It’s not just relentless, its an ab work out!

Women Like Us was born when the two women comics decided to step away from the male dominated comedy scene into venues where women’s stories and experiences are centre stage.

The show is 2 hours of stand up, 60 mins a piece by these powerful, no holes barred, tell it how it is pin up girls for what they call Real Women. ‘We want our comedy to demystify a lot of the garbage that we’re fed about being women’ says Briggs. ‘We tell everyday stories about our struggles, our failure to parent, the beauty industry, getting fatter, strange surgeries, obsessions, frustrations, and at the end of the day ‘who unpacks the dishwasher’.

They call themselves ‘the bogan woman’s thinking woman and the thinking woman’s bogan’.

‘It’s not a show just for women’ says Ellen Briggs who appeared recently on Hughsey We have A Problem , and who last year hosted the Embrace Tour that came through Adelaide with Taryn Brumfitt. ‘In the same way a comedy show by two men would never be seen as a bloke’s only show. Women Like Us is about making our experiences universal rather than ‘niche’. And as it turns out, there are a lot more Women Like Us out there then we ever realised. There’s even a growing tribe of men Like Us too!’

Mandy Nolan is a columnist for the Byron Shire Echo, and writes regularly for Mamamia –and she is the host of their new podcast The Split. She has appeared on ABC's Q&A, SBS's Mums The Word & About Women and is in demand as a corporate and club performer around the country. The two women have well over 30 years of comedy experience between them, and last year they released their book, Women Like Us nationally.

‘Our show is stand up so there are much broader strokes, but in our book we go a little deeper. We really delve into the stories and experiences that have made us who we are’, says Mandy.

Briggs and Nolan performed at the sold out Up Front showcase at Melbourne Comedy Festival at Melbourne Town Hall, these two were clearly the comedy picks of the night. One reviewer raved ‘Two totally relatable ladies who hit the nail on the head of charismatic female comedy. Prepare yourself to be hunched over in hysterics!’

Women Like Us is stand up at its best , where Ellen and Mandy talk about housework, chickens, love, big undies, disappointment, resentment, sex when you’re drunk, fit bits, yoga farts and being a menopausal woman dealing with teenage angst. They’re overworked, overweight and over it….

It was perhaps the 27 year old reviewer from Adelaide Fringe who really got what Women Like Us was all about!

‘I’d be offended if they weren’t considered pioneers of comedy, because they know their shit and do that shit damn well!...Heck it should be part of a woman’s right to be able to be blessed by Briggs and Nolan!