Rama Nicholas: The Lucky Ones (MICF)

Rama Nicholas' one-woman show The Lucky Ones is a loving pastiche of erotic novels filled with supremely silly sex scenes and oodles of highly imaginative innuendo. Nicholas plays romance writer Carmen Walters - and about 15 other characters - as she regales the audience with some good old fashioned down and dirty tales of love and romance.

Nicholas does an astonishing job of keeping several farcical narrative strands discrete. She maintains impressive command of multiple characters, navigating a cavalcade of accents with apparent ease. A subtle shift in facial expression or stance and she immediately inhabits a different character whose motives, desires and perverse predilections couldn't be clearer. She enthusiastically switches between as many as half a dozen characters in a scene, while we marvel at all the plates she's so capably spinning at once.

Nicholas is clearly an excellent actress and a masterful storyteller as plot lines twist and turn and intertwine with minimal confusion. With impeccably timed music and audio cues, this is a tight, well-rehearsed show and a welcome change from watching a guy leaning on a microphone stand and asking people what they do. The show climaxes with Nicholas singing both parts of a hilariously pitch perfect Disney-style duet.

The final quarter of the show is imbued with a surprising poignancy, as we learn more about the life of romance writer Carmen Walters. Nicholas has real things to say about sex and love in 2017. Rather than offering an easy parody of erotic fiction and its authors, she manages to weave several complex stories of romance into what is ultimately a celebration of love in all its forms. The Lucky Ones argues that whether love is between pirates or princesses, mermaids or aliens, it's all the same stuff. And ain't it grand.

Rama Nicholas presents The Lucky Ones till 23 Apr at Malthouse Theatre, part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.