Beginning with a reminder that “it’s not racist if you laugh,” acting MC Joel Creasey gets the laughs rolling before introducing the nights line up of special guests. On September 30 these included comedians Greg Fleet, Adam Richard, Simon Palomares, George McEncroe, Karl Chandler, Tommy Dassalo and X-Factor singer Hayley Teal. The guests change every night so you’re always in for a surprise.

There was a good variety in comedic style – some clearly more popular than others. Chandler rattled off a string of isolated jokes, Richards raised the roof with his parody of X-Factor contestants and everyone enjoyed their “piece of the Fleety magic”. The only real let down was Dassalo with stories that dragged on before they reached the punch lines – some of which were funny, but most fell flat. Luckily Palomares and McEncroe were able to escape from their children long enough to thrill us with vivid impersonations of fourteen year-old emos and their “fuckwit friendships”.

The most surprising part of the show was the concluding performance by X-Factor contestant Hayley Teal. Sitting down because she was “too lazy to stand up,” Teal delivered a pub worthy performance (validating everything Adam Richard had just made fun of) to an audience that couldn’t really understand why she was part of the show. Lacking any comedic entertainment her performance seemed more suited to the main Soft Belly Bar than inside the crowded room of comedy-lovers.

Despite the bizarre choice of ending, the show was a great success with plenty of guffawing laughs from the audience, cheap drinks from a well stocked bar and a host that everyone wanted just a little bit more from. Chandler observed that “people just want to hear about a bargain” and at only $25 a ticket you will most certainly find one in Joel Creasey’s Late Show. It is an absolute must-see.

Likening strip clubs to Neverland, Mercedes (Hannah Williams) takes us on a backstage journey into the people who work there. With stories like learning to pee so you don’t spoil your fake tan and what happens when you burn the hair off a client’s chest – it is a necessary reminder that unlike Peter Pan, strippers live in the real world too. About friendship, confidence and the “journey to self acceptance,” the show is loud, in-your-face and unlikely to be forgotten.

With a combination of song, dialogue and dance, this solo performance is varied and lively with a lot of hilarity thrown into the mix. Williams delivers brilliantly believable characters and her impersonations are comically realistic. Not only playing Mercedes, she shares the personalities of stage girls Bok Choy, Diamond, Roberta and Bambi and the logic behind choosing stage names, their themes and what tricks to perform.

Perhaps the only downfall to an otherwise engaging performance was the dismal support provided by stage crew. At one point Williams was forced to instruct her sound technicians to turn down the music – at another waited for a full minute until they eventually got the music playing. Recovering well from such amateur distractions, Williams delivered a solid performance transitioning well between each scene and incorporating the audience into her act.

Unlikely to be girlfriends because they are only “the fantasy” of any potential boyfriend, strippers face problems most of us would never have thought about. This cabaret sheds light on these problems and deconstructs the barrier created by stages, poles and the exchanging of cash. With heart wrenching honesty it is a chuckle-inducing in-your-face reminder that the girls who work as strippers are exactly like the rest of us.

Or does it?

The show follows Butler’s experiences with various “grammar retarded” girlfriends as they fumble or deliberately rub their “eye shit” into the face of the English language. It is an engaging, often squirm-worthy show that will leave you itching to correct the blunders of grammar slobs everywhere.

Throughout the show examples of bad grammar are placed under pictures of a broken heart or a full heart as the crowd deems which is break-up worthy and which isn’t. Butler is laid back and relaxed; keeping the audience engaged with grammar questions, pop quizzes and a few deliciously grammatically incorrect tunes from his iPod. There is even the opportunity for one lucky grammar pedant to win a red corrections marker. That’s right folks – hold onto your exclamation marks!

While the grammar examples used are not all that original – think the your/you’re debate and the ‘ATM Machine’ tautology, the way in which the jokes are delivered are what gives this show its edge. Every second sentence delivered is a punch line and unlike some comedians Butler has no need to signpost each joke with a giant “LOL” (that’s ‘laugh out loud’ ignoramuses, not ‘lots of love’).

Despite it’s grammatical focus this show is also about relationships. Any person who has ever dipped their toes into online dating or who has been broken up with via text message will find comfort in a room that is amazingly full of similar experiences.

Moving seamlessly from joke to joke, Butler discusses topics like first date etiquette, babies, Chinese food and the Bogans of England. Although most didn’t envy Butler’s “self imposed grammatical cock block” everyone could agree that breaking up because your girlfriend thinks she’s more “intelligenter” than you is totally reasonable. There’s only three shows left, so, like, what are you waiting for? Check it out at the Portland Hotel.

Conjured up by writer filmmaker Clive Barker, Frankenstein in Love is set in the middle of a military coup led by the marvelously portrayed El Coco (Benjamin Marshall). Rebels overrunning the city discover that a man named Joseph Frankenstein (Thomas Middelditch) was allowed, under the previous dictatorship, to mutilate the bodies of the government’s enemies in the name of science. The play reveals what happens when experiments turn on their creator.

With a stage defined by not by walls but by light, nothing about this show is cliché – well, with the exception of Felix Mendelssohn’s ‘Wedding march’. Set in a carpark, the audience is seated on plastic chairs, wooden benches and for some of the 150-minute performance, even the floor. Paired with such an unconventional delivery, the echoic cavernous carpark couldn’t have provided a creepier atmosphere.

Utilizing space, the show relies on the use of shadows, allowing the audience to see newcomers, primarily death, before the characters do. Big on dramatic effects, there is blood and gore pumped realistically into every scene – no tomato sauce here. Acoustically though, the show was halting with dialogue occasionally drowned out by background music or indistinguishable from the dialogue of other characters – a disappointing setback for a show otherwise so engaging.

Despite this, the tremendous talent of the performers was obvious. Batty doctor Lazaro (Tegan Harrod) who stabs holes in her brain “to relieve the pressure” is a welcome light in what is otherwise a very dark performance. Far from “dressing an abortion in Sunday clothes and sending it to school,” it is obvious that Frankenstein in Love is the baby of a lot of hard work and dedication – an absolute must see.