Kushi Venkatesh is nineteen years-old and, according to her Aunty, performing her “worldwide tour in Adelaide” — her hometown.

Venkatesh’s words are paired with a screen playing a slideshow of text, images, and videos that document every moment.

Sitting through Happy feels like a welcome back hug from an old friend.

The show’s light-hearted nature radiates brightly — bringing you back to school days spent gossiping with friends at recess.

There is a familiarity within Venkatesh’s tales of growing up in SA which many seem to recognise.

The audience roars with laughter as she giggles through her performance.

Her humorous stories even reflect the pinnacle Adelaide experience of meeting popular actor Dev Patel somewhere you’d never expect to see a celebrity.

Venkatesh is self-aware of her comedy style and audience which allows her to hit the mark with every joke, tale, and reference.

Each moment is paired with a hilarious visual, thus creating the perfect amalgamation of her personal experience with pop culture moments.

The screen next to her stands tall, highlighting the well-considered and witty nature of each joke.

The comedian not only uses the screen as a visual cue to keep her jokes focused and precise, but also keep the audience engaged with strategies that feel so deliberately Gen Z.

With a knowing laugh, she displays Subway Surfers on the screen next to her, for those who lack an attention span due to hours of doomscrolling on TikTok.

Like most young girls, Venkatesh provides screenshot receipts of each moment.

These are exhibited next to her, showing us  there is no such thing as an online interaction too strange to be true.

The comedian puts her unique spin on a popular topic of conversation among students —plagiarism.

Instead of a dull retelling of getting caught for plagiarising another’s work, Venkatesh switches the narrative on its head.

She kept me in stitches while telling the story of her work being plagiarised, then consequentially gaslit about it by an unknown Instagram user.

This joke was so absurd, it could have become quickly confusing without Venkatesh’s assisting visuals.

Nevertheless, the comedian’s bubbly spirit reflects in the delivery of her jokes, allowing for no number of spoken words to become boring or lifeless.

The show taps into ethnic stereotypes with her crowd work, singling out audience members with hysterical stories.

Venkatesh engages with her audience, all while proving her work is anything but one dimensional.

Her jokes poke fun of herself and other first-year “professional” students with truth and respect — a line many comedians find hard to toe.

Her careless fun, shocking statements, and stereotypical humour proved the comedian’s diverse knack for comedy in all its forms.

For her first time performing a stand-up comedy routine over ten minutes, Venkatesh knocks it out of the ballpark.

This show has become my 2025 Adelaide Fringe favourite for many well-deserved reasons.