JUST FOR LAUGHS SYDNEY Makes First Line-Up Announcement

The 7th edition of Just For Laughs Sydney is thrilled to make its first announcement for this year's festival with another amazing line-up, featuring some of the biggest and funniest international and Australian comedy stars including Kevin Bridges, Rhys Darby, Gad Elmaleh, Bert Kreischer and podcasters My Favorite Murder. In addition, the annual Just For Laughs All-Star Gala and The Comedy Channel's Just For Laughs Australia: Live hosted by TommyLittle return, boasting an incredible line up of stand-up shows. Hold on tight for some HUGE announcements in the coming weeks.

Taking place from September 11-17, the annual week-long event will return to its home at the prestigious Sydney Opera House along with shows at the City Recital Hall and Enmore Theatre. Tickets will go on sale Tuesday June 13 at 9am.

KEVIN BRIDGES is Scotland's biggest comedy export. Dubbed 'brilliant' by Billy Connolly, this is a rare chance to see him live. Kevin made his debut at The Edinburgh Playhouse on Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow in 2009. Overnight success followed with Kevin selling out his month-long run at the Edinburgh Festival in just one day!

His astonishing rise to success continued in 2010 when he recorded his first DVD The Story So Far.... at a sold out Glasgow SECC arena in front of 10,000 adoring fans.

In 2011, Kevin headlined an episode of Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow at the Glasgow King's Theatre. In 2012, he hosted the long running series Live At The Apollo and presented a six part documentary, Kevin Bridges - What's The Story.

His 2012 tour, Kevin Bridges - The Story Continues...smashed box office recordsfor opening day ticket sales. A staggering 45,000 tickets were sold on the first day and sold out an incredible nine shows at the Glasgow SECC Arena. The DVD of this show was a top 5 best-seller in 2012 and is still riding high in the charts with over 300,000 sales.

His 2015 tour, A Whole Different Story sold over 500,000 tickets (including an incredible 16 sold out nights at Glasgow's SSE Hydro Arena) making it one of the biggest comedy tours in the UK. He also released an autobiography We Need To Talk About.....Kevin Bridges.

"It's his eye for details that has elevated him to a MUST-SEE act" Daily Mirror.

RHYS DARBY is no stranger to these shores and this will be his third appearance at Just For Laughs Sydney. Performing his latest show MYSTIC TIME BIRD, Rhys will take this show around the country, with his first stop at JUST FOR LAUGHS SYDNEY. The actor and stand up comedian is best known for his role in the hit television series Flight of The Conchords and movies Yes Man, The Boat That Rocked, Coming and Going, Hunt for the Wilderpeople and What We Do In The Shadows. He has written and starred in his own 8-part mockumentary comedy series for Netflix called Short Poppies. He has also appeared in How I Met Your Mother, Modern Family and The Late Show with David Letterman. His stand-up has been described as a sensational blend of sound effects, characterizations and askew observations.

GAD ELMALEH is arguably the biggest and most loved comedic star in France. Often referred to as the Seinfeld of France, Gad was born in Casablanca, Morocco and he speaks four languages - Arabic, French, English and Hebrew. He made history when he sold out the prestigious Olympia (Paris' Carnegie Hall) for seven consecutive weeks, a task never before achieved. Immediately after his stint at the Olympia, Gad performed for another seven sold out weeks at Palais des Sports - a 3,800 seat venue.

Gad has appeared in more than 20 movies, including Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, as well as the Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson film The Adventures of Tintin.

He decided to move to the U.S. to put himself through a new challenge, creating this new show called Oh My Gad in which he gives his perspective on his new life. His stand up is based on observational comedy. In 2015, Gad sold out more than 50 nights during a residency at Joe's Pub in New York, leading to a multi-city US tour which culminated in a sold-out show at Carnegie Hall in February 2017. His standup special of Oh My Gad will premier on Netflix in 2018.

Gad has been called "a dazzling protean entertainer" by the New Yorker, with The Guardian adding "The chance to see Elmaleh spreading his wings in the U.S. is not one to be missed."

He has made guest appearances on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,Late Night with Seth Meyers, Comedy Central's The Daily Show and Nightly Show, and was featured on Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. He has been featured in Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times and the New Yorker.

BERT KREISCHER is a stand up comic who performs to sell out crowds across the US. He is the host of the Travel Channel's Trip Flip and Bert the Conqueror and previously hosted Hurt Bert. He is a regular guest on The Joe Rogan Experience and The Rachael Ray Show and has appeared on Late Night With David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel Live. His one-hour special Comfortably Dumb appeared on Comedy Central and his book Life of the Party, Stories of a Perpetual Man-Child shares the hilarious and outrageous stories that define his comedy and exemplify what has made him one of the best story tellers of his generation.

MY FAVORITE MURDER is the hit true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and GeorgiaHardstark. Since its inception in early 2016, the show has broKen Download records and sparked an enthusiastic, interactive "Murderino" fan base who came out in droves for the sold-out American tour.

A top 10 regular on iTunes' comedy podcast chart, My Favorite Murder has been featured in Entertainment Weekly, The Atlantic, Nylon and Rolling Stone magazine. Aside from being avid true crime enthusiasts, Karen Kilgariff is a stand-up comedian and television writer and Georgia Hardstark is a writer and host for the Cooking Channel.

7The Comedy Channel's JUST FOR LAUGHS AUSTRALIA: LIVE returns for a fifth season this year. Six live shows hosted by Tommy Little will be filmed exclusively for Foxtel in front of a live audience from The Studio at the Sydney Opera House. Tommy is the host of the Australian version of Whose Line Is It Anyway? and is part of the hit FM Network with a national radio show alongside Carrie Bickmore. Just For Laughs Australia: Live will feature over 30 top Australian and international comedians for a 10-part series which will broadcast exclusively on The Comedy Channel later in 2017 - only on Foxtel.

The crown jewel of the festival, THE ANNUAL JUST FOR LAUGHS ALL-STAR GALA returns and will feature a line-up of major international and Australian comedians. In the past, the Gala has featured the biggest names in comedy including John Cleese, Eddie Izzard, Louis C.K., Bill Burr, Noel Fielding, Drew Carey, Danny Bhoy, Tommy Tiernan, Martin Short and Australian comedy stars including Rove McManus, Judith Lucy, Adam Hills, Dave Hughes and Wil Anderson. The full line up will be announced shortly.