Love Letter to Heephah is Amelia Pawsey’s debut show and the Melbourne Comedy Festival is all the more richer for having her and her guitar and her taxidermy fox on stage. The audience were tightly packed into the carriage on the roof of Trainscendence, but you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for a laugh factory with how entertained everyone was.
Weaving stand-up, song, and storytelling, Amelia relates her experiences living in a share house. It’s a fun and straightforward premise at first, with songs about cutlery arrangement or nosing on the neighbours but then more of Amelia’s observations and anecdotes begin to orbit around the figure of Heephah – a taxidermy fox that one of her housemates brought home from an art gallery.
Thanks to some hilarious ventriloquism, Heephah starts to interrupt the show, and what was fun becomes funnier and what was straightforward becomes mad and brilliant.
Debut shows can be flawed things, undercooked sometimes, or worse – safe. Not here though. Love Letter to Heephah is fearless comedy-making, the kind you make precisely because it is your first show. Anarchic without being messy, the show takes the familiar format of story-song-story-song and subverts it in the best ways.
Debut shows can also be nervous affairs, but the fearlessness in Amelia’s writing translated beautifully to the stage with a confident and engaging performance – especially in moments such as her encouraging the audience to sing along before immediately telling them to shut it so she can solo, or towards the end with possibly the greatest dance break you’ll see this Festival.
Amelia’s talent – much like the very low section of ceiling above her head during the show a couple of times – is undeniable. With only a week left in this year’s Comedy Festival, Love Letter to Heephah is that perfect lil’ discovery you won’t regret making.
Amelia Pawsey: Love Letter to Heephah
Trainscendence (Love Train), 5/48 Easey Street, Collingwood
Season continues to 19 April 2026
Information and Bookings: www.comedyfestival.com.au
Image: Love Letter to Heephah (supplied)
Review: June Collins