Gallery at The Howling Owl Thursday March 5 Our “favourite chaos imp” (surely she’s taller than that?) Zoë Coombs Marr took to the stage after a bit of Stephen Sondheim and Stevie Nicks, and in keeping with a show that was partly about the need to talk to strangers, she quickly got into an odd chat about The Sims with a guy in the front row. Noting that she’s recently been officially diagnosed with ADHD, she then bounced between assorted curious topics, including: meeting an LA taxi driver/conspiracy theorist; the horrors of her hometown Grafton; her wonderfully full-on Australian accent; and how she properly became a woman after being forced to wait at a train station for seven hours. In between all this often-self-effacing stuff were slipped occasional dark and thorny topics, such as how she deals with Trump supporters, racism (here and elsewhere), and even a brief mention of the Epstein Files. But none of this got in the way of the humour, even when she stopped to describe how we all live on stolen Aboriginal land. And yes, only Zoë Coombs Marr could manage such surprising stealth seriousness. But don’t worry, because it was awfully funny too. Indeed, this was the first show that she’s ever done where, as she got completely carried away with yet another tale of Grafton, she managed to lose her grip on the mic, and it fell to the floor in pieces. Maybe this should have instead been called ‘The Drop Zone’?