The Opener sees the triumphant return of one of the finest comedians to come out of Australia, Zoë Coombs-Marr, to London’s Soho Theatre in August and September. Zoe is set to appear as Dave, one of our worst open mic hacks, back for his first performance in the UK since slipping into a coma in 2016.

The Opener sees Dave making up for lost time: He’s missed Covid, Me Too, Black Lives Matter, TERFS, trans rights, Trump, Marriage Equality, cultural appropriation, body positivity, TikTok, micro dosing, and…. Dave Chappelle’s Netflix specials. The world’s changed, but Dave’s awake and ready to rumble in this comedy show meets existential crisis in a modern world “gone PC mad!”. How will Dave react to a word where “cancel culture” is a term thrown around like used tissues?

Zoë Coombs Marr is one of Australia’s most accomplished comedians, as silly as she is smart, Zoe has left a path of genre bending and surprising shows behind her. Zoë has worked in comedy and theatre extensively in Australia, the UK and the US. Her show, Trigger Warning (which also featured a hack comedian called Dave) became the must-see comedy phenomenon of 2016 and saw her win a Melbourne Comedy Festival Awardand nominated for Best Show at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards as well as a slew of other accolades. In 2018 she performed her hit festival offering, Bossy Bottom which was subsequently filmed and internationally released on Amazon Prime Video in 2020.

Recently, Zoë has supported Hannah Gadsby in San Francisco and Los Angeles, performed Bossy Bottom in LA, debuted a new show Agony! Misery! in Australia and co-hosted the Sydney Mardi Gras telecast for SBS. Zoë has most recently appeared as a regular on The Weekly with Charlie Pickering, and as a guest on the latest season of Spicks & Specks. In the UK, Zoe has appeared on Channel 4’s Harry Hill’s Club Nite and has had multiple sold at runs at the Soho Theatre.

The Opener will be a thing to behold. An unreconstructed train wreck bought to life with dance, puppets and hallucinations thrown in for good measure. Dave is a character that is both despicable and vulnerable; watch in disbelief as he tries to cram and process the last seven years of upheaval into one, very wild hour. This shamanic takeover of Zoë by this comedic Encino Man will be both wildly funny and viscerally cathartic.