In October 2014, Lauren Bok sat on a panel at the National Young Writers’ Festival in Newcastle and told a packed roomful of budding comedians how to write their first five minutes of stand-up material. Less than a year later, she’s set to perform her first 60 minutes as she debuts her first full-length solo show, Is That a Burrito in Your Pocket or Are You Just Happy You Have A Burrito, at the 2015 Melbourne Fringe Festival.

Bok is no stranger to Melbourne’s comedy landscape – she’s a regular in comedy rooms throughout the city and in the past three years she has taken double- and triple-bill shows to Adelaide and Melbourne Fringe as well as Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Though she is now writing on her own, collaboration and competition have helped Bok hone her craft. In addition to her joint shows, she was a cast member on  Live on Bowen, the RMIT-produced Channel 31 talk show, for two years before the show finished its run at the end of June this year.

“It definitely has been able to help me be more collaborative, to listen to other people,” she says of her time on the show. “But you also get that thing where you have to fight out – if you want to go, if you want something in the monologue, it has to be really sharp and it has to win, basically.”

“Comedy is slightly competitive,” she says wryly. “So [your idea] definitely has to be on the top of the pile and you have to learn how to fight to get it there. So [working on Bowen] made me go – it’s not some precious thing that I just hold onto and put out to the world – you actually have to, from the very first time that you have an idea or just a quick joke or whatever it is, you have to just slam it in people’s faces.”

Slamming Lauren Bok in people’s faces for an hour is more or less the theme of Is That A Burrito, though there’s a little more experimentation than her comedy club work.

“I think that is the theme – the theme is me. But it’s a little bit of the stuff I’ve been working on – just stuff white people like. Stuff white girls like. More, I guess, the theme is burritos, obviously. So maybe looking at the choices that we have to put on our burrito, and somehow you just want the perfect one, and sometimes the burrito can’t hold.”

“It’s a metaphor,” she adds sardonically.

Working on her own for the first time has, for better or worse, made for a much quicker writing process. “It’s definitely quieter than it has been,” she says. “It’s like, ‘what do you think about that Lauren? No, that’s great! That’s solid gold. You know what, don’t change that.’ And you go, ‘yeah, cool, well I’m writing this extraordinarily quickly! Everything’s fine.’”

Bok has a slew of bells and whistles planned for her nine-show run, including an introduction (of sorts) from acclaimed filmmaker Werner Herzog, as well as some surprise burrito-themed appearances at her penultimate show, which falls on her birthday. If all goes well, she may take Is That A Burrito to interstate Fringe Festivals, but for now, the focus is on preparing to get through these first nine shows.

“It’ll be me putting my stuff out there, having trial shows, showing stuff to friends and family and just making them really sick of the show before it’s on. And then they have to come and pay and see it, so that’s my plan.”

Lauren Bok’s Is That a Burrito in Your Pocket or Are You Just Happy You Have A Burrito runs at The Court House Hotel in North Melbourne from 16-25 September, at 8.30 pm (7.30 pm on Sunday). For tickets visit www.melbournefringe.com.au or call (03) 9660 9687.