Robyn Reynolds Brings Her Acclaimed Hour ‘What Doesn’t Kill You’ To Qtopia Pride Fest

After successfully debuting her show in Adelaide and Melbourne in the last few months, Robyn Reynolds is absolutely stoked to be bringing her standup-musical comedy hour What Doesn’t Kill You to the city she started out in comedy for Qtopia’s Pride Fest – well, mostly.

“I’m actually genuinely so excited, and only maybe 20% scared,” she says to City Hub. “There’s so many amazing artists in the lineup for Pride Fest and so many different kinds of shows. So I just hope there’s a bit of spillover and that everyone goes to see everything, that it’s a real festival vibe – that’d be amazing!”

Robyn’s part of a huge array of performers at this year’s Pride Fest, featuring everything from colourful cabaret to guided tours and indie theatre. Still, What Doesn’t Kill You stands out on the list for its pitch as a standup comedy show about a “reformed people pleaser”, chronicling Robyn’s most embarrassing, painful moments through both humour and song.

But despite topics covered throughout the show involving generational trauma and chronic illness, Robyn says the goal isn’t at all to wallow. “It’s supposed to be extremely lighthearted, because the way that I and all my favourite people deal with everything weird, harrowing and slightly traumatic in life is through comedy and humour,” she says.

“The word cathartic is so overused, but it’s been such a catharsis and reframing of things that really hurt me or made me feel powerless at the time. Now look at this room full of people who are laughing at it with me; it really helps you reclaim so much of the power of your story. I don’t want anyone coming away thinking ‘Wow, what a trauma dump.’ It’s a very celebratory, positive show!”

“It’s a very celebratory, positive show”

Robyn thinks that’s why the show has resonated so much with women, especially queer women and those living with chronic illness. “I hate to generalise, but I do feel like anyone who’s grown up being even slightly different from the ‘norm’ grows up with a sense of humour. Maybe you’ve been bullied, been masking or hiding your true self, but you grow up being able to read a situation and adapt.”

“Being able to laugh at yourself, make a joke and break the tension is a huge part of that. And I do feel like that’s a theme in a lot of queer comedy shows that I love. Like, cabaret and drag always has this very dry sense of humour that’s a bit sarcastic and self-deprecating but also extremely confident and comfortable on stage.”

Speaking of confidence, it’s taken Robyn years to feel comfortable incorporating music into her comedy. “I grew up in the 2000s, before the Gen-Z ‘embrace everything, nothing is uncool’ approach. You had to pretend to love whatever was popular at the time, so seguing musical comedy into my standup has been a reclamation for me,” she says.

“It’s so wonderful to reincorporate it because I tried very hard when I first started comedy, but in my experience there’s not a lot of room for women to be bad when they first start standup. But in the last two-ish years I’ve been exploring that again by teaming up with a wonderful composer and it’s been absolutely fantastic!”

So when Robyn Reynolds’ What Doesn’t Kill You touches down at Qtopia’s Pride Fest in June, you’ll be guaranteed a night of cathartic comedy with a flair of theatricality in the brilliant Loading Dock Theatre. In five words? “Trauma, but make it funny,” says Robyn.

Robyn Reynolds: What Doesn’t Kill You plays at Qtopia Pride Fest on June 4th and 5th.