Zoë Coombs Marr is a performer, writer, and one of Australia’s most impressive and accomplished comedians. She first took to the mic when she was 15, and has since performed extensively across Australia and internationally, winning critical acclaim and multiple awards.

Zoë is most recently the creator, writer and host of Queerstralia – a fascinating look into the untold LGBTQIA+ history of Australia, available to stream on ABC iView. Queerstralia won Best History Program at The World Congress of Science & Factual producers and The Australian Editors Guild award for Best Editing in non-fiction TV. It was nominated for the Diversify TV Award at MIPCOM Cannes and Best Documentary, Best Editing, and Best Direction in Nonfiction Television at the 2024 AACTA Awards.

Her latest live show – Every Single Thing in My Whole Entire Life – debuted to Australian audiences in 2024 and played to sold out houses in Melbourne, Edinburgh, London, New York, and LA’s Netflix Is A Joke festival. Every Single Thing In My Whole Entire Life is nothing fancy, no big concepts, just a simple stand up show covering every single thing in Zoe’s whole entire life. Classic Coombs Marr.

Zoë’s show Trigger Warning was the must-see comedy phenomenon of 2016, winning the Melbourne Comedy Festival Award as well as the Golden Gibbo, two Green Room Awards and nominations for Best Show at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a Helpmann and the 2017 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Drama. Turns out you can make intersectional feminism funny.

Here’s the thing though: until 2018 Zoë most frequently appeared in comedy circles (including in Trigger Warning) as Dave, a retrograde male comedian with a neckbeard. That year she (re-)appeared as herself, sans Dave’s neckbeard, with her hit festival offering Bossy Bottom. The show saw Zoë nominated for Best Comedy Performer at the Helpmann Awards and won her a prestigious Herald Angel Award in Edinburgh. In 2020 Bossy Bottom was filmed and internationally released on Amazon Prime Video.

In 2021 she became a contributor to The Weekly with Charlie Pickering, hiding out in the crawlspace of the ABC with Barrie Cassidy and flying off on a broom as part of her regular Week In Work segment, and has regularly appeared as a panellist on Australian screens for the last decade in shows such as: Would I Lie To You?, Guy Montgomery’s Spelling Bee, Thank God You’re Here, Dirty Laundry Live, How Not To Behave, The Chaser’s Media Circus, Spicks & Specks, and Question Everything, amongst others.

Zoë has written and performed for scripted television including: Black Comedy, Rosehaven, Get Krack!n, The Letdown and her stand-up comedy has featured on Harry Hill’s Clubnite, The Stand Up Show with Jon Dore (CTV), The Melbourne Comedy Festival Gala, JFL Australia, The Hannah Gadsby Gala, JFL Montreal, Comedy Next Gen and Comedy Up Late, to name a few.

As a writer and theatre maker, Zoë’s work has been critically acclaimed internationally across multiple genres. She has written, directed and starred in productions at world class venues including The Sydney Opera House, The Melbourne Arts Centre (AUS) Soho Theatre and Traverse Theatre (UK). In 2012, her solo theatre/comedy work And That Was The Summer That Changed My Life was awarded the Philip Parsons Young Playwright Award and nominated for Best Newcomer at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. In 2014, her five-woman ensemble play Is This Thing On? was presented at Belvoir Theatre and won a Sydney Theatre Award for Best Ensemble and a nomination for Best New Australian Work. In 2017, her theatrical collaboration with Ursula Martinez and Adrienne Truscott, Wild Bore, premiered at the Malthouse Theatre and went on to be performed at the Soho Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe and the Skirball Centre at NYU.

She is one third of the contemporary performance company POST, whose work has been translated into multiple languages, and has been presented at venues spanning from Sydney Theatre Company, to European Arts Festivals, GAM Santiago and Hong Kong’s International Black Box Theatre Festival.

★★★★★ The Age 

“Mind-melting in the very best way.”
★★★★ Time Out 2023

“A master-class in meta humour.”
★★★★★ The Herald (UK)

“Deliriously funny… Stand-up at its subversive best.”
★★★★ Evening Standard (UK)

“Thunderously funny…”
★★★★★ Shadows on the Wall (UK) 2023

“Perfectly-pitched”
★★★★ The Scotsman 2023

“Coombs Marr is at the top of her game.”
★★★★ Arts Hub

“One of the sharpest brains on the comedy circuit.”
Australian Stage 2023

“An escalating spiral of metafictional hilarity… Catch this masterful tour de force while you can.”
★★★★★ Broadway Baby

“Punky and genuinely original.”
★★★★★ Mirror

“A cascade of ideas, jokes and images that leaves you head spinning and your heart laughing. This is daring, high-wire comedy at its best.”
★★★★★ Chortle

★★★★★ Ed Fest Magazine

“Off-the-charts, wet-your-pants brilliant. Zoe Coombs Marr is a genius.”
★★★★1/2 Herald Sun

“Quite remarkable”
★★★★ Guardian

Television

QUEERSTRALIA
Host/Creator/Writer. Guesswork Television 2023
CELEBRITY LETTERS & NUMBERS
Panellist. ITV/SBS 2022
SPICKS & SPECKS (Series 12)
Panellist/Cameo. ABC TV 2022
MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL COMEDY FESTIVAL OXFAM GALA
Comedy Spot. ABC TV 2022
SYDNEY MARDI GRAS
Mardi Gras History segment writer/presenter. ABC TV 2022
THE WEEKLY WITH CHARLIE PICKERING (Series 7)
Writer / Regular Segment Performer. ABC TV 2021
SPICKS & SPECKS (Series 11)
Panellist. ABC TV 2021
MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL COMEDY FESTIVAL OXFAM GALA
Comedy Spot. ABC TV 2021
THE MOTH EFFECT (Mini-Series)
Role: Employee / Professor McBride. Dir: Various, Bunya Productions 2021
GAY & LESBIAN MARDI GRAS
Co-Host. SBS 2019-2021
CELEBRITY MASTERMIND
Guest Contestant. SBS 2020
AT HOME ALONE TOGETHER
Segment. ABC TV 2020
BOSSY BOTTOM
Solo Show. Amazon Prime 2020
LOCKDOWN COMEDY
Stand Up. STAN 2020
THE LETDOWN
Role: Amber. Dir: Trent O’Donnell, Giant Dwarf 2019
GET KRACK!N
Role: EJ Hayes / Jean (VO) / Shopper’s Corner (VO). Dir: Hayden Guppy, Katering Productions 2017-2019
MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL COMEDY FESTIVAL UPFRONT GALA
Comedy Spot. ABC TV 2018
TONIGHTLY WITH TOM BALLARD
Stand Up. ABC TV 2018
BLACK COMEDY
Guest. ABC TV 2018
CRAM!
Guest. Network TEN 2017
STOP LAUGHING… THIS IS SERIOUS (Documentary)
Interview. ABC TV 2017
COMEDY NEXT GEN – TRIGGER WARNING
Stand Up Comedy Special. ABC TV 2016
COMEDY UP LATE
Stand Up (as Dave). ABC TV 2016
THE CHASER’S MEDIA CIRCUS
Guest. ABC TV 2015
DIRTY LAUNDRY LIVE
Regular Panellist. ABC TV 2013-2015

Live Shows

THE OPENER
Solo Show. Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Brisbane Comedy Festival, Replay Festival, Darwin Festival, JFL Montreal 2022
HANNAH GADSBY: BEST NEWCOMER
Co-Host. Sidney Myer Music Bowl 2021
AGONY! MISERY!
Solo Show. Perth Fringe Festival, Adelaide Fringe Festival, Brisbane Comedy Festival, Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2020-2021
LET’S LAUGH
Line Up Show. Sydney Opera House 2020
BORN SLIPPY
Solo Show. Melbourne Fringe VCR Fest 2020
HELLO AGAIN, HI THERE
Solo Show. VCR Fest 2020
BOSSY BOTTOM
Solo Show. Adelaide Fringe, Brisbane Comedy Festival, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Darwin Festival, YACK Festival, Canberra Comedy Festival, Return Season MICF 2019, Edinburgh Fringe, Malthouse Theatre Melbourne, Soho Theatre London 2018-2019
ICH NIBBER DIBBER
Play with Natalie Rose & Mish Grigor. QPAC Brisbane, Malthouse Theatre Melbourne, Sydney Opera House 2018
WILD BORE
Play with Adrianne Truscott & Ursula Martinez. Malthouse Theatre Melbourne, Edinburgh Fringe, Soho Theatre London, Sydney Festival, Skirball Centre NYC 2017-2019
TRIGGER WARNING
Solo Show. Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Giant Dwarf Sydney, Easey Street Concert Hall Melbourne, Edinburgh Fringe, Soho Theatre London, All About Women Festival Sydney Opera House, Return Season MICF 2017, Return Season Edinburgh Fringe 2017, Brisbane Festival, New Zealand Festival 2016-2018

Awards

2019 Winner – Edinburgh Festival Fringe – Herald Angel Award
2018 Nominee – Helpmann Award – Best Comedy Performer
2017 Nominee – Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Drama
2017 Winner – Green Room Award – Independent Theatre: Performance
2017 Winner – Green Room Award – Independent Theatre: Writing
2016 Winner – Melbourne International Comedy Festival – Melbourne Comedy Festival Award
2016 Winner – Melbourne International Comedy Festival – Golden Gibbo
2016 Nominee – Edinburgh Festival Fringe – Best Show
2012 Nominee – Melbourne International Comedy Festival – Best Newcomer

Writing

QUEERSTRALIA (Creator/Writer)
Guesswork Television 2023
AFTERTASTE (Series 2) (Additional Writing)
Closer Productions 2022
NUDE TUESDAY (Additional Writing)
Good Thing/Madman/Stan 2022
THE WEEKLY WITH CHARLIE PICKERING (Creator/Writer, The Week In Work)
Thinkative/ABC TV 2021
GET KRACK!N (Additional Writing)
ABC TV 2019
ROSEHAVEN (Additional Writing)
ABC TV 2019

Other Notable Work

Slushy – Podcast (2020)
MICF Plot Twist – Podcast (2020)
Delivered Live – Comedy Spots (2020)
Just For Laughs Montreal – Comedy Spots (2020)
Hannah Gadsby MICF – Supporting Comedy Spots (2019)
Tom Walker: Very Very – Director (2019)
Ilana Glazer at Hamer Hall – Supporting Comedy Spot (2018)
Tom Ballard and Friends at YACK Festival – Cast Member (2018)