As Melbourne's International Comedy Festival comes to an end, Sydney's kicks off with an opening gala event across two key locations this year. The Opera House and The Metro Theatre, where Comedy Central hosted a night of some of this countries finest and great international comedy stars.

The one thing I liked coming in was the shroud of secrecy behind who the comics were for the evening. It allowed for surprises and it also allowed me to not go in with any preconceived perceptions of some of the comics. Our host was New York stand up comedian whose name was the only one I didn't quite catch, who did an admirable job of opening up proceedings talking about how he was amazed to find out Koala’s carry chlamydia and how he did the bridge climb high. ("what better thing to do when your high?").

Kicking off with Axis Of Awesome who taught the audience through song how to write a meaningless boy band love song and a song dedicated to just about every car driving along George Street on a Friday night "Can You Hear The Fucking Music Coming Out Of My Car?". Steve Hughes questioned how it is actually possible to have sex in an aeroplane toilet, whether New Zealand is a real place and are we living in a police state. The end of his routine though almost became a racist diatribe which left a few audience members feeling a little uneasy.

Scottish comedian Craig Hill, resplendent in white kilt and all poked fun at Australian and South African accents and talked about some of his favorite audience members. Felicity Ward questioned the woman filming in the front row and then mooned her. Rhys Nicholson from Balls Of Steel contemplated the practicalities of Ivan Milat's immigration policies and Dave Eastgate gave us an acoustic version of his heavy metal ballad about Greenland and Iceland which sounded a lot like Tenacious D.

Australia's queen of comedy, Fiona O'Loughlin spoke about her aging children especially her balding 25 year old son and extremely tall 22 year old daughter. She also spoke fondly of her favorite child. How can a parent have a favorite child you ask? Easy...when it's the next door neighbors kid. Ex-Saturday Night Live comedian Jim Breuer took us into a mosh pit of a Slayer concert and UK comedy troupe Idiots Of Ants perform two hilarious skits about dad jokes and a pissed off bee coming back to collect his honey.

The whole show was filmed for a part of a Comedy Central special to be screen next month and was a great little taster for some of fine comedians who'll make Sydney home for the next few weeks.