MICF Best Newcomer nominee 2025 — dry storytelling, from international relations to scissors factories.
Rapha Manajem is a comedian and writer from Melbourne. He studied International Relations at the University of Queensland — graduating with a minor in Peace Studies and a major in Global Conflict — before discovering that stand-up comedy was a more natural fit. In 2023, he was a runner-up in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival's national RAW Comedy competition, which aired on SBS. In 2024 he was selected for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival's prestigious Comedy Zone and the Festival Roadshow in the Northern Territory. In 2025, he debuted his first full-hour show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and received a nomination for Best Newcomer.
Rapha's comedy is rooted in storytelling — charming, dry and preoccupied with the subtleties of human interaction. His 2023 RAW Comedy runner-up title was shared with two other comedians — by his own account, second and also fourth. A precise, self-aware absurdism runs through his work, as does an evident fondness for unlikely detail — he drives to the Dandenong Ranges at 4am to write, he once led a corporate campaign for the right to wear sandals in office environments, and he left the corporate world following a Worksafe settlement involving a scissors factory.
Rapha is an emerging talent with the kind of voice that tends to build loyal audiences quickly. He is well suited to club nights, festival bills, corporate entertainment and any event that values intelligent comedy delivered without fanfare.
Rapha Manajem is an entertainer based in Victoria. Book through Executive Speakers Australia.
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