Inviting, honest and amusing

By Myron My

There’s a ghost that is said to haunt The Butterfly Club. Upstairs, in its theatre space, the spectre lingers on stage, flashing lights on and off and – oh hang on a minute, it’s just Laura Davis covered in a white bed sheet in a return season of her 2015 Melbourne International Comedy Festival award-winning show, Ghost Machine.

Davis travels back to her first existential crisis at the age of 11, and from there she revisits the moments in her life where things haven’t always been that great. It is all done however in a masterful way where despite sharing these personal stories and experiences, she gives the audience permission to laugh at and with her because we can all relate to what she is saying. We have all experienced the despair, the rage and the humiliation our circumstances have induced, in some way, shape or form.

Ghost Machine ponders the age-old questions of what are we doing and why are we here. The show is not a constant bellyache of laugh-out-loud humour but it’s a damn good entertaining hour of insights and story-sharing. Davis has an extremely calming presence and even with the awkward stage persona and the loud talking, she creates a warm and welcoming environment for her audience. This is especially crucial for when she ventures into the crowd asking what their guilty pleasures are or to share the regrets of their lives.

If there’s one thing to take away from Ghost Machine it’s that life isn’t always going to be a bunch of roses. There is always going to be crap that we are going to have to deal with but Davis lets it be known (because it something we need to constantly hear) that looking on the bright side is always important and that we should laugh the little things away. It’s a very valuable lesson. Well that, and not to self-medicate based on a YouTube comment.

Venue: The Butterfly Club, 256 Collins St, Melbourne

Season: Until 7 June | Fri-Sat 9:00pm, Sunday 8:00pm

Tickets: $32 Full | $28 Conc

Bookings: https://www.thebutterflyclub.com/show/ghost-machine