WINNER OF MOST OUTSTANDING SHOW AT MELBOURNE COMEDY FESTIVAL RHYS NICHOLSON BRINGS THEIR NEW STAND-UP SHOW ‘HUGE BIG PARTY CONGRATULATIONS!’ TO THE 2024 EDINBURGH FRINGE, FOLLOWED BY A UK TOUR WITH A STOP OFF AT BRIGHTON KOMEDIA ON OCTOBER THE 9th.
Following their hugely successful debut UK tour last year, winner of Most Outstanding Show at Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2022 and winner of Best Show at Sydney Comedy Festival 2022, Rhys Nicholson is set to bring their brand-new hour ‘Huge Big Party Congratulations!’ to the Edinburgh Fringe, performing at Underbelly Bristo Square at 8.25pm throughout the festival. This will be followed by a 22-date UK tour from 6th September to 30th October, with tickets going on pre-sale this Wednesday 1st May at Ticketmaster.co.uk, followed by a general on-sale for most venues the next day.
Congratulations are in order, Rhys Nicholson is finally married. After years of performing sell-out stand-up shows taking us on the journey of getting engaged, fighting for marriage equality in Australia, planning and then cancelling their wedding because of a fun global health crisis, it could be argued that being indefinitely betrothed became Rhys’ personality. In their brand-new show ‘Huge Big Party Congratulations!’ Rhys is set to publicly untangle themselves for money and ask the big questions now that their “happily ever after” has begun. Like, what in the absolute f**k are they meant to talk about now, and why don’t they feel any different being wed? Rhys would also like to make it clear that the show has an astounding amount of jokes, especially of the dick variety – all for the sake of a good laugh and perhaps a few of their mortgage payments along the way.
Rhys Nicholson is a multi-award winning Australian stand-up, writer, and actor. With an enormous passion for live performance, their work continues to receive awards and accolades around the world, including winning Most Outstanding Show at Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Best Show at Sydney Comedy Festival in 2022. In 2023, Rhys performed a sell-out debut UK tour of their smash-hit show ‘Rhys, Rhys, Rhys’, which followed on from the success of performing several critically-acclaimed hours at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
A regular fixture on primetime TV, Rhys is on the judging panel of all four seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under, and can be seen on other programmes such as Taskmaster Australia, Roast Battle UK, and The Stand-Up Sketch Show, as well as performing on numerous televised stand-up performances in Australia, the UK, Canada and the USA. As an actor, they have appeared on a number of sitcoms, including being cast as a series regular in the Netflix Sci-Fi comedy The Imperfects.
In 2019, Rhys was hand picked to open for comedy legend Conan O’Brien on their Australian tour. A few months later this led to Rhys’ USA television debut as the stand-up guest on CONAN. 2019 proved to be quite a big year for Rhys when in November they recorded their third stand-up special.
Rhys is the co-founder of Melbourne live comedy venue, The Comedy Republic. Last year, they wrote their debut book of essays ‘Dish: Spiels, scoops, emotional outbursts and the occasional recipe’, which is described as a semi-stream-of-consciousness written tapestry, squeezed out by a profoundly apprehensive overthinker who’s doing their best to unapologetically stop apologising. (It’s funnier than it sounds.)
Star of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under and Netflix’s The Imperfects-
“an hour of high-powered hilarity…Nicholson is as sharp and biting as ever” ★★★★★ TimeOut
“sharp suits, sharp wit and wickedly caustic camp…sparklingly here and now.” ★★★★ The Guardian
“What a privilege to enjoy the work of a performer who can deliver such skilful, elegant and perfectly crafted stand up” ★★★★★ The Scotsman
“Gently serrated wit…stealthy sense of absurdity” ★★★★ The Times
