Zoë Coombs Marr is a performer, writer, artist and comedian. She grew up in Grafton, where she and her best friend staged a musical instead of going to schoolies week. She has a double degree in Performance Studies at UNSW and Fine Arts at COFA, where she was awarded the Dinosaur Designs Prize and the Art and Australia Award. Her video works and sculptures have been exhibited at several galleries, including First Draft, Kudos and King’s ARI, and in 2006 she won the National Poetry Slam Championships under dubious circumstances.

Zoë has performed stand up comedy extensively in Australia, the UK and the US. 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 was nominated for Best Newcomer at the Melbourne Comedy Festival.

Zoe’s Trigger Warning was the must-see comedy phenomenon of 2016. Zoë won the Melbourne Comedy Festival Award as well as the Golden Gibbo, two Green Room Awards and was also nominated for Best Show at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe Festival 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.

Since filming her Amazon special, Zoë squeezed in a flying visit to support Hannah Gadsby in San Francisco and Los Angeles for her Netflix taping, performed Bossy Bottom in LA, debuted a new show Agony! Misery! in Perth, Brisbane and Melbourne, co-hosted Sydney Mardi Gras for SBS twice and created new works in iso for the Stan Comedy Lockdown series and Melbourne Fringe’s VCR Fest.

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, as well as guest appearances on Amazon’s The Moth Effect and Spicks & Specks.

Zoë’s biggest news in 2022 was that Dave was back. The Opener, her latest live fiasco, debuted at the Melbourne Comedy Festival in 2022 and was presented by invitation at that year’s Just For Laughs Montreal in tandem with an appearance by Zoë at the Hannah Gadsby Gala.

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 and nominated for Best Documentary or Factual Program and Best Direction in Nonfiction Television at the 2024 AACTA Awards.

A new live show – Every Single Thing in My Whole Entire Life – will debut to Australian audiences in 2024. Nothing fancy, no big concepts. Classic Coombs Marr.

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★★★★★ The Age 

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

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

‘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

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)