If you’ve got kids and you’re missing a certain kind of gloriously silly Australian humor, this one’s for you. The Listies, one of Australia’s most beloved kids’ comedy acts, are making their New York City debut this July, and they’re bringing the full dose of dad jokes, songs, and underpants gags with them.
For families in and around New York, this is a rare chance to give the kids a night of properly Australian silliness, right here in Midtown.
Who are The Listies?
The Listies are Richard Higgins and Matthew Kelly, a comedy double act who, in their own words, are serious about being silly. For more than 15 years they’ve toured the world performing for what they call “kidults” — kids and their adults — and they’ve built a genuine following doing it. Australian families will likely know them from ABC shows like Art Blast and The Listies Work For Peanuts, their books with Penguin and Scholastic, and their podcast The Listies Make You LOL.
They’ve also picked up some serious hardware along the way, including Best Kids Show at the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe and a Golden Gibbo Award at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. As they tell it, they remain the only kids’ act ever nominated for that festival’s Best Show award.
The show: Make Some Noise
Make Some Noise is billed as a comedy concert for humans aged 4 to 400. Rich and Matt belt out a run of original songs with, in their words, the LOLs turned up to 11, mixing music, clowning, and family-friendly chaos. It’s aimed at ages 4 and up, but the whole pitch is that the adults have just as good a time as the kids.
The reviews back it up, with five-star notices from Time Out and The List. As The Scotsman put it, if your kids have never been to the theater before, this is a first experience they won’t forget.
Kids’ comedy workshops with The Listies
Alongside the show, The Listies are running a series of 50-minute joke-writing workshops for humans aged 7 to 12 (and, they insist, intelligent cats). These are a lovely add-on if your kids catch the show and want more.
- Pun-Demonium (a workshop all about puns and wordplay): July 4 and 5, and again July 18 and 19
- Absurd Ads (inventing ridiculous products and slogans): July 11 and 12
All workshops run at 11:00 AM and cost $15. Fair warning from the team: expect dad jokes, groans loud enough to register on the Richter scale, and at least one joke about underpants.
When and where
The Listies run July 1 to 19, 2026, Wednesday through Sunday, at 2:00 PM, at AMT Theater, 354 West 45th Street, New York, NY 10036. Tickets are $15 for kids 12 and under and $20 for adults.
Book show tickets through AMT Theater’s ticketing page, and reserve a workshop spot here. You can read more about the duo at thelisties.com.
If you’re an Aussie family in New York, or you just want to introduce your kids to the kind of humor you grew up with, this is a genuinely good excuse to get out to the theater these school holidays.
