Amazon has commissioned Guesswork Television to produce the series of stand-up comedy specials, which include Celia Pacquola’s All Talk; Tom Gleeson’s Joy; Tommy Little’s Self-Diagnosed Genius; Judith Lucy’s Judith Lucy vs Men; Lano & Woodley’s Fly; Anne Edmonds’ What’s Wrong With You?; Zoë Coombs Marr’s Bossy Bottom; Tom Walker’s Very Very, Dilruk Jayasinha’s Live and Alice Fraser’s Savage. 

Guesswork also produced Hannah Gadsby’s acclaimed stand-up comedy special Nanette for Amazon competitor, Netflix.

“We’re looking forward to welcoming this talented group of Australian comedians to the Prime Video family,” James Farrell, head of international originals said, adding that each of the comedians have crafted “hilarious performances”.

Celia Pacquola has been working the stand-up comedy circuit for 12 years.

Her 2009 show Am I Strange? was performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, where it won Best Comedy and The Age Critics Award for Best Australian Act.

In 2016, Pacquola hosted the Oxfam Gala for the Melbourne Comedy Festival, becoming the youngest woman to do so.

In 2018, she won the Helpmann Award for Best Comedy Performer for her stand-up comedy show All Talk, which is now set to be filmed and screened.

She is also co-creator (with Luke McGregor) of Rosehaven, a TV comedy series set in a real estate agency in rural Tasmania.

A veritable star of Australian comedy, Pacquola was described by the Comedy website as “sharp, frank, honest, deft and smart as hell”.

Pacquola, whose father was Italian-born, most recently starred in an acting role at the Sydney Theatre Company, appearing as J.G. (Jenny) Milford in their production of Oriel Gray’s The Torrents.

The play is about a woman in the 1890s who has taken ona  job at Koolgalla’s local newspaper – but no one in the newsroom expected J.G. Milford to be a woman.

The production received four stars from The Guardian with reviewer Cassie Tongue saying: “There’s a compassion to Pacquola’s performance that softens the play and allows it to find moments of poignancy.”

The commissioned comedy specials will be filmed at The Coopers Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne, and are expected to be available for streaming online in 2020.

Buy tickets to see Pacquola’s filmed performance of All Talk on September 14 on the Malthouse Theatre’s website.