Gordon Southern: A Brief History of History
The Laugh Resort
Sunday, February 8 2026
Self-professed nerd-in-the-middle-of-a-relapse Gordon Southern brought A Brief History of History to The Laugh Resort, a spirited and very entertaining attempt to cram the entirety of everything that has ever happened into exactly fifty-seven minutes.
Southern speed-ran through prehistory and the dinosaurs, swapped the asteroid that wiped them out for climate change, and did his due diligence for any creationists in the room—“This is not the show for you.” History, and therefore the show, didn’t truly begin until humanity discovered writing, today attributed equally to the Egyptians and Phoenicians, which sparked the first of several awkward white guy raps.
Religion followed, with a spirited discussion of polytheism versus monotheism—it basically came down to more gods meant more statues required more resources—before the performance dove straight into Greece and Alexander, Rome and Caesar. An aside to the Helvetii of modern-day Switzerland never having been conquered led to a very silly, very funny joke about typeface fonts.
Slavery was bad, but the movie Spartacus was very good, while Jesus was characterised as a good messiah but probably a bad drummer. Jerusalem being a central point of three religions was recognised, but there were no jokes here because Southern was not a bloody idiot.
The centuries then flew by. St George probably dispensed with a crocodile or large skink rather than a dragon, The Hundred Years’ War lasted so long because both protagonists actually enjoyed it, and a pop quiz of who was worse, Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan?
The Renaissance (Europe did good) bled into the Age of Exploration (Europe did bad); empires rose before revolutions felled them; Britain left America and relocated to Australia, while the afternoon was in danger of becoming an ever-extending global version of We Didn’t Start the Fire. Entertaining, yes, but with often little time to focus on the last joke before the next three arrived.
Southern gave an electric, skittish energy throughout the performance and talked as if three hundred words to the second, while at the same time demonstrating a laid-back and effortless control of the subject matter. Horrible Histories, QI, and The History Channel were all directly referenced during the show, and the cadence and mannerisms of each were evident in different spots across the comedy—with even perhaps a liberal splash of Not the Nine O’Clock News.
The last century was played in reverse to land on a happy-ish ending. The horrors of global war and genocide were all unwound, and everyone survived circa 1913—while Fukuyama’s end of history gambit received a guernsey, rendering the last thirty years moot, because nothing at all has happened since the Berlin Wall fell and Mandela was freed.
A Brief History of History was a wonderful Sunday afternoon out, well worth navigating the Perth summer heat for. It didn’t cover everything—going in depth on the Trump presidency alone would have gone well over time—but what it did explore brought both big laughs and big education, exactly as Southern had promised at the top of the set. A masterful performance by an artist fully across his brief, this was the type of show that would have the audience gleefully recall the dry wit and extremely niche observations days, or perhaps even weeks, into the future.