Louisa Fitzhardinge - Comma Sutra

Australian comic, Louisa Fitzhardinge, along with her pianist John, presents Comma Sutra, a comical show discussing the use of improper grammar and punctuation. This show is great for both musical theatre and grammar enthusiasts alike. Comma Sutra is an amusing lesson in written English, laced with parodies of both pop and musical theatre songs that explain her frustration with incorrect grammar.

Though initially beginning in a fairly formal manner, almost like you’re back in the classroom, she soon moves on to be humorous and witty as she performs grammar focused raps and skits in a more stand up comedy fashion.

Louisa Fitzhardinge takes advantage of her multilingual skills (she is fluent in English, French, German and Sign Language) to explore the hilariously vast differences between the languages and their translations. A specific highlight of the show is her presentation of the English translations of German animals with a witty song.

As amusing as some of this content is, some offers little more than a shared image on social media would and some jokes are well known and already overused. As she progresses into a section about dad jokes, we are reminded of several fairly basic jokes.

She involves the audience throughout the performance and ends the production with four members of the audience testing her linguistic knowledge. She performs a rendition of ‘What a Wonderful World’ as they hold up flags representative of the different languages to challenger her to switch between languages.

Comma Sutra is ideal for any grammar enthusiast looking for a light-hearted production providing relief from the distress of grammatical errors, as well as those looking for some English language tips.