Is just one of the takeaways from Gillian Cosgriff’s latest work, Life, Oh Life.
Some comedians take the stage with certainties. Multi award-winning musical comedy master Gillian Cosgriff takes the stage with questions. Her latest work, Life, Oh Life, constitutes the culminating chapter of a trilogy that began with Actually, Good and progressed through Fresh New Worries. Across these three performances, Cosgriff has meticulously interrogated the textures of human experience: the pleasures we gravitate toward, the anxieties that preoccupy us, and, in this final installment, the wisdom we might impart to one another. The show is a study in the absurdities and profundities of existence, a performance where a round of Guess Who might segue seamlessly into a musical number, and a millennial meltdown becomes a lens through which to examine contemporary vulnerability.
"It's not The Lord of the Rings. You can jump in at any time without seeing the other shows," Cosgriff observes. "But it beautifully bookends my last two shows. Actually, Good and Fresh New Worries. They all ask questions—”What do you like?”, “What are you worried about?”, and then in this one poses, “What advice do you have?”." At the core of Life, Oh Life lies an exploration of human interconnection. Audiences are invited to contribute their own words of counsel, creating an improvisational tapestry that oscillates between the comic and the reflective, the absurd and the profoundly instructive. "I've actually met my favourite audience member at the last show," Cosgriff recounts. "A 78-year-old who had some great advice to offer."
The juxtaposition of that elder participant with a 12-year-old audience member illuminates the show’s intergenerational lens and the spectrum of life advice consumed at the varying ages of wisdom.
"We ask for audience members to write their piece of advice and there's everything from “Never stand next to an atomic bomb” coming from the 12-year-old, which I think is fantastic advice at any age, to “Never trust the lock on a train toilet”," she laughs. The humour is immediate, yet Cosgriff attends to the narrative density beneath each line.
“What is remarkable to me is how much story can be told in a single sentence. There's so much contained to that single line.”
Gillian CosgriffEach note is treated with archival care; she reads them all and photographs each contribution, transforming ephemeral audience input into enduring artefacts of collective reflection. "There's also some really heartfelt moments as well, and I read them all and take photos of each note. They live on after the show and sometimes are great measures of my own life and offer that ongoing guidance.”
This participatory methodology not only renders the audience integral to the performance but also reframes the act of giving and receiving advice as a shared aesthetic encounter. In Life, Oh Life, the quotidian becomes performative, the mundane assumes symbolic weight, and laughter operates as both relief and insight. The trajectory that has enabled Cosgriff to orchestrate such nuanced engagement is rooted in a multifaceted artistic formation. A graduate of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) with a Bachelor of Music Theatre (2010), she initially envisaged a conventional pathway through musical theatre. Comedy, however, arrived via a less orthodox route.
“I snuck into comedy through the grubby backdoor of cabaret.”
Gillian Cosgriff"I never thought that I could get into comedy. I didn't think that space was open for me but the more I performed, the more I've been met with open arms. It's great that I can filter all of my performance background into these shows."
Her eclectic training informs the hybridised nature of her work, in which narrative, music, theatricality and comedic observation coexist with precision. Songs evolve into punchlines; personal anxieties are transfigured into communal experiences; even the interludes of audience participation are carefully calibrated within a broader dramaturgical architecture. Through it all Cosgriff finds the humanity in the humour, with Life, Oh Life not at all reflecting the mirroring mantra-led song ‘Life’ by Brit-pop singer Des’ree, who offers “Sometimes living out your dreams ain’t as easy as it seems”. Cosgriff is living the dream.
"I love my job and I'm very grateful that it's gone on this long and hopefully keeps going!"