Kids’ comedy duo The Listies to bring a serious amount of silliness to Fringe

Following their epic national and international tour of ROFL, kids comedy duo The Listies are bringing their latest show Make Some Noise! to Fringe World for the first time this summer. For over a decade the award-winning Listies have toured the world doing shows, and now it’s Perth “kidults” turn to be part of the fun, as the pair hit Studio Underground at State Theatre Centre of WA from Sunday, January 22 to Sunday, January 29 (get more info and tickets here). BRAYDEN EDWARDS caught up with The Listies to discover a world were silliness reigned supreme – with inflatable people, haunted toothbrushes, misbehaving babies, toilet paper canons and more.

It’s great to have you here for Fringe 2023. Had you been planning to pay us a visit for some time?

Yes we did the first ever Perth Fringe with our adult show in the Speigeltent and it was hugely fun but that was a long long time ago, in the dinosaur times, and now we have graduated from comedy for old people (18+) to kids shows so it’s time to return!

The pair of you have been performing together for a good 15 years now! How does your latest show Make Some Noise! compare to what you have done before?

It has songs in. We have a baby in the show, that looks suspiciously like Matt, that takes over the stage and sneezes all over Rich. It’s frankly unhygienic.

The show will feature tracks from your latest ‘Musical Owl Bum!’ What kinds of topics does an album of such a name cover?

Good question, it covers all the critical issues of our time that kids face, like wacky arm waving inflatable people, haunted toothbrushes, misbehaving babies and also it has a song literally about nothing. We we thought that that was impossible but then we realised nothing is impossible so…

The Listies are said to be “serious about silliness” – so what’s the silliest thing you have ever done?

Realise that you can attach toilet paper rolls to leaf blowers to make toilet paper canons, and build an entire career on that discovery.

The honesty of children can be adorable, but sometimes brutal too… what’s something funny kids have said to you about your shows?

They say the baby is Matt, but this is clearly incorrect, Matt is not a baby. He eats solids, hardly every cries and hasn’t pooped his pants for ages.

What’s something we’ll see at your show we won’t see anywhere else at Fringe?

Five year olds and fifty-five year olds laughing at the same jokes!