Kirsty Webeck has become one of australia’s most loved comedians and, as it happens, is also a delight to talk to. I sat down with her to chat about life, being a queer comedian, sea creatures, and her new show lost for words, which is currently touring the country.
Before comedy took over Kirsty’s life, like so many others preceding her, she worked in jobs that were not aligned with her true passion, including a stint in the public service and also as a kindergarten teacher. But that all changed in 2013, when Kirsty fell in love with making people laugh after doing just a single five-minute set at the end of a comedy workshop. Soon after, she launched straight into writing and performing a full-length show. Employing her public relations background, she sold over 100 tickets to her first major performance in Canberra. No stranger to hard work, Kirsty used this show as a launching pad to build a professional stand-up career from the ground up.
Over the years, Kirsty has based her comedy career on sharp observations, warm delivery and a genuinely joyful brand of humour. Known for turning the everyday into something sharply funny, she has become one of Australia’s most in-demand comics, with a style that feels playful, inclusive and easy to love.
She has toured nationally with the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Roadshow, appeared at major gala events including the Opening Night Comedy Allstars Supershow and The Oxfam Gala, and over the years has become a regular presence on Australian and New Zealand television.
Her credits include Question Everything, The Weekly with Charlie Pickering, The Project, Just For Laughs, 7 Days and Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont Spelling Bee, where she recently broke the record for the most episodes won. She has also released two solo specials, with Silver Linings on Paramount+ and I’ll Be The Judge Of That on YouTube.
In 2025, she made an unusual addition to her life as a comedian, becoming an ambassador for the Australian Marine Conservation Society. While it might sound like an odd pairing — stand-up and sea cucumbers — Kirsty’s passion for our oceans is as deep as the Pacific.
Her 2025 tour show, Everything I Need To Say About Sea Creatures, brilliantly blended her devotion to marine conservation and comedy, making audiences laugh and (hopefully) take note of an ongoing crisis below the sea.
Kirsty Webeck is touring the country and is about to swing by Canberra. Daniela Koulikov from FUSE took the opportunity to have a chat about her new show ‘Lost for Words’, doing comedy without the sad bits, AI and fish.
FUSE : YOU’RE OFTEN DESCRIBED AS ONE OF THE MOST POSITIVE COMEDIANS IN THE BUSINESS. IS MAINTAINING THAT UPBEAT PERSPECTIVE A CONSCIOUS CHOICE, OR IS IT YOUR DEFAULT?
KIRSTY WEBECK : Honestly, I think it’s just part of my personality. I never feel like I need to try and remain positive. There’s definitely dips, and it’s been a very difficult industry to forge a career in, but over the years I’ve maintained positivity as I’ve been slogging it out to get to where I am now.
In terms of my content, my brain is naturally geared towards things that are a bit light-hearted and often frivolous. I always had a passion for getting into comedy. I want to make people feel better and give them a nice escape for an hour. My writing has always been heavily skewed in that direction.
I really enjoy it and I like the feedback that I get from people, that they get to have a really fun time for an hour and not think about their problems or the stressors in the world.
WHAT KEPT YOU MOTIVATED WHILE YOU WERE SLOGGING THROUGH IT?
I really wanted to be a professional comedian and that was the trick. I see it now when I’m talking to comedians who are coming through. I see the ones who really, really want it, for whatever reason. They’ll stop at nothing to make that dream a reality.
I feel really lucky that I found the thing that I was so passionate about and that I really wanted to do with my life. I know a lot of people never find it or find it much later than I did.
Just knowing it was what I wanted to do was enough motivation in of itself. It’s not dissimilar to starting out in any other career. You have to build the tools, the reputation and the fan base. In another industry, that would be your customers. It all takes time. You do have to slog it out for years as you get better at writing jokes, and while people start finding your work and enjoying it.
For me, it was basically keeping my eye on the goal, which was to be a full-time stand-up comedian. Once that was achieved, I was like, what’s next? I want to be performing for as many people as possible. I want my audiences to grow every year. I want to start touring internationally.
SPEAKING OF TOURING INTERNATIONALLY, YOU’VE GOT A MASSIVE STRING OF DATES ACROSS NEW ZEALAND. HOW DOES YOUR BRAND OF AUSTRALIAN HUMOUR TRANSLATE? DO YOU HAVE TO SWAP OUT ANY SPECIFIC AUSSIE REFERENCES?
I have a connection on the inside! My partner is from New Zealand and I spend a lot of time with my partner and her family, so I know exactly how they operate.
I have a bit at the beginning of my current tour show where I make a little bit of fun of her accent and how I speak as well. I have been rolling that around in my head, because they won’t understand that joke. They’ll just think we’re talking normally!
I’ll change local references and all that kind of stuff, but I always do my research. It’ll be a whole different kettle of fish when I finally get over to the UK, which I’m hoping to do next year.
WHERE WILL YOU BE GOING IN THE UK?
I want to try and go to London and do the comedy club there, maybe organising a mini tour around some of the major cities. I’m very excited to finally get to do that.
THAT IS EXCITING! IN TERMS OF AUDIENCE, DO YOU FEEL LIKE MOST OF YOUR AUDIENCE IS QUEER? DOES IT MATTER TO YOU WHETHER THEY ARE?
No, it doesn’t matter to me at all and I find that the majority of my audience is not queer. In some parts of the country where I tour, there’d be very few queer people, if any, in the audience. I never really developed a queer fanbase. In the early days, when I was starting out, I probably had more people from the queer community coming out to see me. As the shows got bigger and as I started moving into TV, I noticed they somewhat dropped off.
Maybe a reason for it is that I don’t talk a great deal about being queer in my comedy. I talk in broad brushstrokes about things that I think would be relatable to anyone who’s just out there, living their life. I don’t know who’s going to be in my audience and I want my material to be accessible enough to everybody.
DO YOU FEEL A SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY AS A HIGH-PROFILE QUEER COMEDIAN TO REPRESENT THE COMMUNITY?
Yes, if you’re from any minority group, people expect you to represent them in the way they view to be the correct way to be represented. I’ve had this conversation with some of my friends, who are from different cultural backgrounds, have disabilities, or are also in the LGBTQIA+ community.
We do our craft to the best of our ability, in good faith. I’ll keep creating what I’m creating. We’re in this era now, where we post on social media and people are in your DMs saying you should’ve done it differently. You can’t please everyone.
YOU OFTEN WORK WITH CHARITIES. HOW DO YOU CHOOSE WHO TO PARTNER WITH?
I choose causes that I really, really care about. The work of the places I partner with has to be very closely aligned with my values. Time is finite and there’s different ways to support different organisations, which I do throughout the year. Some are in my capacity as a comedian and others are just in my capacity as a human being living on this earth.
I’m currently an ambassador for the Australian Marine Conservation Society. I’m so passionate about the ocean and protecting it.
CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT THAT; WHAT ARE SOME SMALL WAYS PEOPLE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
The one right off the top of my head, is whenever I take my dog for a walk on the beach here in Melbourne, I always take a little bag and I pick up any rubbish I see. So many people repeatedly thank me for doing it, but I’ve never seen them start to do it.
One day, I will find a lovely way to motivate people to join me. I’ve got to come up with a friendly one liner to encourage them to take part. Maybe, “it would be awesome if you joined me and next time you came down, you brought a bag”. I like the idea of quietly trying to change other people’s behaviours by leading by example — and this one is so funny to me because it’s not working. Who knows, maybe they’re annoyed I’m taking the litter out of the water! I’m also passionate about the education side of things with the Marine Conservation Society, especially pollution in waterways and the demise of species.
I’m in a snorkelling group here in Melbourne. Someone posted that there had been a wedding proposal staged at the marine sanctuary where we snorkel. They’d used plastic rose petals and threw them into the air when the proposal happened. A few of us jumped into cars and drove over to pick up whatever we could.
Things like that are a massive disconnect. There were so many people involved in the process, from the organisers to the couple, that had a disconnect between the beauty of the marine sanctuary and pumping this plastic directly into it. I don’t think people are malicious; I don’t think they thought, I’m going to propose to the love of my life and choke some fish.
But I’d like to think that if someone had said to them, hey, this is a marine sanctuary and you’ve released all this plastic into it, the penny would’ve dropped.
Anyway, we have a really cool project coming up that I can’t say too much about, but it’s made me realise how important it is that we get this information out to people. Comedy is such a gentle way to do it.
I find comedy is a powerful tool for helping people feel less defensive about learning something new.
HOW HAS YOUR COMEDY CHANGED OVER THE COURSE OF YOUR CAREER? ARE THERE TOPICS YOU USED TO AVOID THAT YOU NOW FEEL COMFORTABLE TACKLING?
Yes, absolutely. I feel lucky that I started comedy when I was 30, because I was old enough to know my limitations. I was always careful to talk about low stakes topics, when I knew I didn’t have the skills to tackle anything heavier. These days, there’s lots that I discuss in my comedy in a gentle way, but I know how to do that now.
My current tour show has a loose theme in it: I’m very anti-AI and that’s linked with my thoughts on the environment and saving it. It’s also due to my love for art and human creativity and thinking. That’s why I’m not using ChatGPT, Claude, or any kind of AI to generate art for posters, or anything like that.
So, I have this gentle theme in a silly show. It’s talking about the advancement of technology and how I’m hopeful about it. It’s not doom and gloom though, there’s a hopeful message in my show.
Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have touched on a topic that theoretical. I wouldn’t have known how to weave it in a light way, to get people thinking.
LET’S TALK MORE ABOUT YOUR NEW SHOW!
It’s called Lost for Words. This is the show that I speak the most about my relationship with my partner in. We recently had our eight-year anniversary, so I start the show there. We went on a holiday to Western Australia last year and we visited a few places that are interesting to people with science backgrounds, which neither of us have.
So, I have a few bits in my show about that. It’s very silly and it has this loose seam of, let’s stop getting our phones and computers to do everything for us. Let’s get back into interconnecting with each other and experiencing our environment. Let’s see the world as much as we can, rather than having our heads stuck in our phones. It’s all tackled in a very light-hearted way.
YOU’VE PERFORMED IN CANBERRA MANY TIMES, HOW DO YOU FIND THE ENERGY OF A CANBERRA CROWD COMPARED TO THE BIGGER COASTAL CITIES?
A bit of inside knowledge for you: we all love performing in Canberra, not even only me. That’s got nothing to do with the fact I grew up there. There are so many great places to perform, especially when you’re touring, and I’ve been a touring comedian for most of my career now. It’s probably my favourite place in the country to perform. The audiences are so great. They give you so much goodwill.
I love Canberra audiences. I’m always absolutely pumped to get back there and do shows. Even though I don’t know many people that live there anymore, Canberrans have always been so generous in getting around me. Which is why I’m coming back for an encore show!
Kirsty Webeck is currently touring Lost for Words around the country and will be at The Street in Canberra on 30 May. For more tour dates visit kirstywebeck.com
Kirsty Webeck's Socials
Kirsty Webeck - Lost For Words
Canberra Comedy Festival 2026 Encore Show
Kirsty Webeck is bringing her smash hit show back to Canberra for an encore for one night only...
One thing no one has ever accused Kirsty Webeck of is being lost for words. After a huge 2025 Australian tour, Kirsty is back to show you that the words just keep flowing and that they’re always hilarious. As seen on The Oxfam Gala 2026, Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont-Spelling Bee and Question Everything, and as heard on ABC Radio's Thank God It’s Friday with Charlie Pickering. Grab some tickets and come down to see why Kirsty is Australia’s champion of cheerful comedy who never misses.
'Kirsty is a compelling storyteller and is hilariously clever in her set.' ★★★★★ Fringefeed
