Award-winning comedian Vanessa Larry Mitchell brings her adults-only show, Teardrops on My Dildo: The Endurance, to Moree on Saturday, September 26. Image supplied.
There are stories you tell in public, stories you save for your closest friends, and stories you probably expect to take to the grave.
Vanessa Larry Mitchell has made a comedy career out of telling the second kind.
The award-winning comedian brings Teardrops on My Dildo: The Endurance to Moree on Saturday, September 26, with two hours of dating disasters, motherhood, womanhood and the parts of adult life people do not usually discuss in polite company.
The strictly 18+ show has moved from the previously advertised Moree Memorial Hall to Social Co House, 167 Balo Street. Existing tickets remain valid.
“A lot of my favourite stories in the show are the ones I would never usually tell anyone publicly,” Vanessa said.
What began with the sort of personal stories she would normally tell friends became something unexpectedly cathartic once she started sharing them with a crowd.
“The more I shared them, the more I realised it was kind of cathartic for me and then the crowd as well,” she said.
Those stories have since travelled around Australia and overseas, including to Edinburgh Fringe, England and Ireland. Vanessa won Best Comedy at Newcastle Fringe in 2022 and Best Stand-Up in 2026, and returns to the UK and Ireland in October.
Moree gets the full version.
The Endurance combines two connected shows into one two-hour performance. The first half is Vanessa’s original show, which she has toured for almost six years. The second came later when she decided to “up the ante”, adding a different chapter of her life, projected material, visual surprises and a short song.
“It’s almost like a diary,” she said.
And if the title has left anyone wondering how polite the evening will be, Vanessa is happy to clear that up.
“It’s filthy. I always say it’s filthy to give people a warning. The title kind of tells you that anyway.”
The show carries strong sexual references, coarse language and frank stories about dating, sexuality, relationships and parenthood. But Vanessa said the point was not simply to shock. Much of the reaction comes from audiences recognising something of themselves in stories they might never tell from a stage.
The crowds have changed, too. Vanessa said audiences were overwhelmingly female when she began touring the show, but women returning for another round are increasingly bringing men with them.
“The women now bring all the men,” she said. “They’re like, ‘No, it actually is safe. You will love this.’”
Based in Lismore and raised in central Victoria, Vanessa describes herself as a sheep shearer’s daughter and remains completely self-managed. Despite touring internationally, she deliberately keeps regional centres on the schedule.
“Regional areas appreciate coming out a lot more,” she said. “They appreciate that you’ve bothered to add them to the schedule.”
For a performer who has built the show town by town, Vanessa has a fairly simple test for whether the night has worked.
“If the whole crowd leaves pissing themselves laughing, then job well done,” she said.
Moree gets its chance on Saturday, September 26.
Teardrops on My Dildo: The Endurance runs from 7.30pm to 9.30pm at Social Co House, 167 Balo Street. The show is strictly 18+. Tickets are $45 plus a $1.80 booking fee through Ticketebo.
