Laura Davis - Swag

Laura Davis is back after a stint living in England, and she’s become a ‘radical centrist’ bringing us ‘strike action’. The beloved comic is sick of comedy, and they'’ve turned to making protest signs for a living.

The bulk of 'Swag' consists of Laura Davis talking us through hand-painted signs that run across the political spectrum, with examples catering specifically to paediatricians, children, and more. Some signs are elaborated upon, others stand alone as the joke. Through it all, there are glimpses of a very earnest struggle to find purpose in comedy, to find a place in the Australian comedic landscape. 

Davis’s high-octane, kilometre-a-minute delivery works perfectly for the role of 'burned out comedian', but the repetitive premise starts to become wearisome. At the very least, the experience effectively mimics the experience of doomscrolling. As the show unfolds, it’s unclear how much of Davis’s hyped-up, ranting persona comes from them, and how much is a construct – a confusion that muddied the show for me. (Those anecdotes about living at the zoo are surely an extended bit.) I saw 'Swag' on the second night of its run, so maybe this is just a case of needing to be finetuned. 

Given the Australian arts organisations that are being financially gutted and the artists who are being censored — not to mention the global rise of fascism – the idea of a comedian giving up is intriguing. Unfortunately, while the meta-commentary at the core of ‘Swag’ is intriguing, some of its effect gets lost in the execution.