Ask No Questions of the Moth

Judith Lucy starts the show shaking a pair of maracas, awkwardly dancing across the stage, and declaring that she can move. It is a silly, high-energy opening that quickly gives way to her signature dry delivery as she spends the next twenty minutes directly bantering with the front row and tearing into latecomers. This comfortable, loose crowd work sets the stage for a performance that is deeply personal but entirely stripped of self-pity. Lucy treats her audience like old friends, sharing a series of mortifying stories with a casual indifference that makes even her darkest moments feel incredibly funny.

Filmed at the Comedy Theatre in Melbourne for Stan’s “One Night Stan” stand-up series in 2016 and released in April 2017, the special captures the material that won Lucy the 2015 Helpmann Award for Best Comedy Performance. The show’s title is a nod to a 12th-century Sufi mystic poem, which Lucy used as an excuse to pose in a sad moth costume for the promotional poster — a look she jokingly regrets not wearing on stage. The material itself is born from what she describes as a “magnificently terrible” year, specifically dealing with the death of her brother, the onset of early menopause, and the stress of producing her television series.

Rather than letting the heavy themes drag the room down, Lucy pivots to lighter, grosser territory. She recounts a disastrous night of passing out on a restaurant toilet, waking up next to a wool jumper she mistook for a partner, and dealing with a relationship with a man twelve years her junior. Through all the physical indignities of middle age, her deadpan perspective keeps the show grounded. It is the work of a seasoned veteran who knows exactly how to convert genuine grief and personal embarrassment into an evening of shared relief.