About
If it’s silly yet meaningful, narratively unorthodox, gut-punch comedy you’re after Alice Fraser is your gal. An Australian/Hungarian ex-corporate lawyer of Jewish descent (but practising Buddhism), Alice is the award winning writer, broadcaster, comedian and banjo player with an impressive breadth of experience on the circuit.
From the hallowed halls of Cambridge in the Footlights to the sticky floors of New York’s cut-throat comedy scene, chronic thinker Alice has developed tough, flexible and impressive writing and performance skills that bring a unique edge to her unforgettable narrative comedy.
She has toured the world with her critically acclaimed solo shows The Resistance, Savage and Empire, receiving four and five star reviews and packed out houses in Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide, New Zealand, London and the Edinburgh Fringe. As well as her live stand-up, Alice has appeared on BBC Radio 4, Radio National and as regular co-host of the cult radio show “Tracksuits” on FBi radio, Sydney. She was awarded the 2016 AMP Tomorrow Fund grant for her podcast ‘Tea With Alice’, has given a TEDx Talk about vanity in the face of death, debated the power of the media against Julian Assange at Splendour in the Grass and once did a gig in a Butcher’s shop next to a rotating meat display. That was, apparently, much more stressful than any of the other things.
Watch Alice Fraser: The Resistance
The Resistance is an incisive and dextrous hour of beautifully crafted storytelling. It speaks to the tumbledown house Alice Fraser grew up in, and the tumbledown people who lived in it. Silly, smart and wonderfully inclusive, Alice uses moments from her past to explore connections between pain, beauty and vanity and the need to celebrate life while you’ve got the chance. Expect silly, smart and poignant comedy with the odd pun and jaunty ditty on the banjo thrown in for good measure.
Short Clips
See Alice Fraser Live
Information on Alice Fraser’s upcoming gigs and live shows can be found here.
Bio
Studying Arts and Law at Sydney University, Alice began her life in comedy through the Improvised Comedy scene and the Arts & Law Faculty revues across two universities and 5 years of writing, directing, producing and performing.
During her Masters in English Literature at Cambridge, she carried her love of sketch comedy writing and performing into the Cambridge Footlights.
She then went to New York for a stint as an intern in an NYC investment bank, started doing stand-up comedy in her spare time, and despite a brief career as a lawyer at Allens Linklaters, has been doing standup ever since.
Now a full time comedian and writer, Alice has performed sold-out solo shows at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Sydney Comedy Festival, Canberra Comedy Festival, Perth, Adelaide, New Zealand and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals. She has performed all over the world, from Cambridge to New York, and from London to Damascus to universal critical acclaim.
Although an advocate of the power of the silly (she cites the Monty Python clan as the people she’d have most liked to have worked with), she is also undoubtedly philosophical, bringing social commentary to much of her work. And she’s not afraid to push boundaries either. She tells VoiceMag “People are more worried now that you’ll make them laugh at something they’d feel bad about later, so it’s a little harder to talk about uncomfortable things. Unfortunately for me, I love treading that fine line – I’m sure it’ll get me in trouble one day. I think I’m on the side of truth and justice but intent doesn’t seem to matter so much nowadays. People are looking for points to score, particularly against their allies. You get double points if you can bring down someone for failing at perfection. Some right-wing radio jock has to go a lot further to be pinged for crossing the line. If you can accuse Sir Ian McKellen of homophobia, you win.”
Alongside her live performance, Alice also writes jokes for Austrailian current affairs talk show The Project , as well as the satirical news radio show “A Rational Fear”. She is a frequenter on “The Bugle” podcast hosted by Andy Zaltzman and writes a regular column for SBS Comedy and The Chaser Quarterly. Her latest solo stand up show, Ethos, is a double act with a robot that looks at advancements in Artificial Intelligence and what they teach us about being human. When The Wee Review asked her how she goes about writing a show that deals with such a big subject, her answer was typically and brilliantly Alice – “The same way you would eat an elephant; one joke at a time!”.