Former Project Writer Launches First National Comedy Tour & Divisive Neighbourhood Experiment

What started as a bizarre incident in a park has grown into a national conversation about how Australians treat the people next door.

Last year Melbourne comedian and former comedy writer at The Project, Rowan Thambar was playing catch with his wife in the park when he witnessed his neighbour throw dog poo at a stranger. The situation escalated into a police matter and Thambar suddenly found himself listed as an official witness.

That awkward, drawn-out experience became the basis of his new comedy show Sorry For The Late Reply, now touring nationally across the Adelaide Fringe Festival, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Sydney Comedy Festival, Brisbane Comedy Festival and Newcastle Comedy Club.

Inspired by the incident, Thambar has launched Rate Thy Neighbour. A tongue-in-cheek national social experiment inviting Australians to anonymously rate everyday neighbourliness, from bin etiquette and noise levels to small talk and general friendliness.

“Half my friends would join a commune before they'd start a conversation with the person next door,” Thambar says. “After the incident I realised that I don't even talk to my neighbours. We've forgotten how to talk to each other and it means we have no accountability for how we act with each other. So I thought - what if neighbours got reviewed like Uber drivers?”

Rate Thy Neighbour collects anonymous submissions that are reviewed and aggregated to reveal broader patterns about neighbourhood life. No exact addresses are published, names are anonymised, and all entries are moderated to ensure the project remains playful and non-targeted.

While intentionally light-hearted, the project taps into larger questions around modern neighbourliness, loneliness, doing the right thing in an increasingly divided world and what happens when small, everyday tensions go unspoken.

The experiment now acts as an interactive companion to Thambar's comedy show Sorry For The Late Reply, a story-driven hour about hesitation, responsibility and the strange moral territory of dobbing on your neighbour.

“On stage I tell the full story - the police report, why my neighbour threw the poo in the first place and my own paralysis about whether to get involved,” Thambar says. “Both on and off stage, I'm trying to establish a fun conversation about how we connect with the people who live right next door.”

Tour Dates

• Adelaide Fringe Festival
  Feb 24 – Feb 28, 7:00pm – Rhino Room
• Melbourne International Comedy Festival
  Mar 26 – Apr 19, 9:15pm – Chinese Museum
• Newcastle Comedy Club
  Apr 25, 6:00pm
• Brisbane Comedy Festival
  May 7 – 10, 8:30pm – Brisbane Powerhouse
• Sydney Comedy Festival
  May 14 – 17, 9:10pm – Enmore Theatre

Australians can take part in the experiment now at Rate Thy Neighbour and check out how their neighbourhood does on the National Leaderboard. Plus don't miss how the story unfolds live on stage.