‘Am I a bad person because you can see my nipples?’ Elouise Eftos on making standup sexy

<p>In an age of self-deprecation, the former cabaret star is infuriating fellow standups by calling herself ‘Australia’s first attractive comedian’ – and flaunting her sex appeal on stage</p><p>Is Elouise Eftos really Australia’s first attractive comedian? Her fellow countryman Sam Campbell has boyish charm, after all – and in some of those frocks, even Dame Edna cut quite the dash. But if you’re thinking in these terms – if you’re taking the claim at face value – you’ve already got the title to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/aug/21/elouise-eftos-australias-first-attractive-comedian-review-fabulously-provocative-jokes">Eftos’s hit standup show</a> all wrong. You wouldn’t be the first. “I had fellow comedians telling me, ‘You shouldn’t call yourself that,’” says Eftos. “I found that so fascinating and sad, that I was told I was stepping out of line just for using this silly title.” She pauses. “Comedians are some of the most serious people I’ve met in my life. I do find it funny that they can’t take a joke.”</p><p>Eftos speaks from the vantage point of the outsider – as a still-recent arrival in comedy, and because of her Greek-Macedonian heritage, palpably a significant thing for her when we talk over a video-call while she holidays after the Edinburgh fringe. From that perspective, she rips into comedy and its macho myths in her show (“Everyone tells you how hard it’s going to be [to do comedy] … It’s not that hard at all”), and publicly airs her beef with several prominent comics, too. Titled Australia’s First Attractive Comedian, the set secured for the 33-year-old a best newcomer nomination in Edinburgh, making gleeful play in the uncomfortable space between comedy, feminism and sex appeal.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/oct/06/elouise-eftos-sexy-standup-australias-first-attractive-comedian">Continue reading...</a>