Rose Callaghan is a Melbourne based award winning stand-up comedian, actor, writer and presenter.
Melburnians will be familiar with Rose for her regular ABC Melbourne podcast segment on Afternoons with Jacinta Parsons. Before covid ruined everything she spent the year touring Australia on the club circuit, doing festivals and treading the boards in local comedy venues. Over the past 8 years she’s earned a reputation for herself as bold, provocative and most of all hilarious.
More recently she’s opened for Liz Miele (USA) at the Comedy Store, and been invited to perform at the Sydney Comedy Festival Gala, Sydney Comedy Festival showcases, Woodford Folk Festival, and as one of 4 stand-alone acts in the Late Night Laughs series at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. She also gained a lot of attention for an opinion piece she wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald about her experience being diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 32.
A prolific content maker – she provides tongue in cheek analysis of social media trends with her online show ‘OverShare’ and has produced a series of popular sketches skewering contestants on The Bachelor. As an actor and writer she had a sketch featured in the Princess Pictures’ “That’s What She Said” series, appeared on ABC TV’s Get Krack!n (featuring Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney) and played the lead role in upcoming web series Prospero & Tash. A picture of her boobs appeared in the first series of The Katering Show [sunglasses emoji].
After establishing herself as a promising newcomer (“one of the best up and coming comedians Melbourne has to offer” – Pedestrian.TV) Rose really started to get attention in 2016 with her debut solo standup show “Rose Before Hoes/Attention Deficit…Ooh a Pony!” which won BEST COMEDY at Sydney Fringe.
The show went on to sell out Perth Fringe World, Melbourne Comedy Festival and Sydney Fringe Festival. Since then she’s continued to sell out entire runs, add extra shows due to popular demand and receive slews of rave reviews with her shows “Will You Accept This Rose?” (2017), “No Way Rosé” (2018) and “12 Rules For Life (2019)”.
She’s a sought after voice on the airwaves – being asked to chat about everything from music, dating, reality TV, politics, news of the day, the internet and AFL football (go tigers). You may have heard her as a regular on triple j – as well as Double J, Triple M, The HIT Network (2day FM and Fox), ABC RN and ABC 774, as well as cult community stations FBi Sydney and 3RRR FM. She’s been broadcasting in various capacities since 2007.
As a single woman, Rose gained attention for the cult hit podcast “Swipe Night”, a no holds barred account of the brutal word of online dating. She’s known for her honest and self deprecating perspectives on modern love. The podcast featured various guests including Becky Lucas, Gloria Van Vaulke, Michael Hing, Clem Bastow, Sam Taunton and Cameron James.
In 2020 she debuted a new podcast, “Friendship Rose”, an as-it-happened dissection of The Bachelor and Bachelorette featuring different reality TV contestants, critics and enthusiasts each episode, including Charlie Pickering, Brocklesnitch, Matt Tarrant (Survivor), Michael Beveridge (Big Brother), Brocklesnitch, Jo Thornely, Liv Hewson, Jim Malo and Hannah Story.
“Jaw-dropping and downright hilarious. ★★★★ ” – The Herald Sun
Her career highlight was achieved last year when she went on the road (fully clothed) as the support act for international comedy sensation “Puppetry of the Penis” performing to sold out audiences throughout Australia.
“She’s damn funny. That’s all you need to know. Go see her. ★★★★” – Daily Review
As well as stand-up she performs improv (she was an ensemble Harold team member in one of the original Improv Conspiracy teams in Melbourne), sketch and acts (she played the lead role in upcoming web series Prospero & Tash, had a sketch featured in the Princess Pictures “That’s What She Said” series, and has appeared in various commercials.
Rose is quite prolific on social media and in a past life was a script writer for commercial radio.
As a freelance writer she has been published in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Vine, Triple J Magazine, Broadsheet, Beat Magazine, ToneDeaf and AWOL.