Melbourne International Comedy Festival Reviews (Blog Style)

Running from the 1st to the 26th of April, The Melbourne International Comedy Festival is one of the three largest in the world, and presumably the funniest. Goldele Rayment has a packed schedule and will be bringing you daily bite-sized reviews of what’s worth it, what isn’t and where to find the laughs.

1-12th April Tues-Sun, 9.30pm

Trades Hall – The Meeting Room

‘Eric’ aka Scott Gooding

The hub of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF), Trades Hall, was buzzing on opening night.

First up for me was “Eric”, performed by Scott Gooding. Scott created “Eric” as a vehicle for him as a performer and as an opportunity for the many playwrights he knows. He gave a solid performance, racing through dozens of characters and scenarios. He did struggled somewhat with his characterization, needing to find some stronger physicality and firmer accents or voices for a number of his personas.

Director Scott Brennan made some well placed sound and lighting choices, which augmented the humour nicely. This is good old fashioned sketch comedy that is sure to entertain lovers of TV sketch shows such as the good old Australian Comedy Company or Fast Forward, my particular favourite was the inflatable Dad, pure genius!

In the Bella Union bar at 10:45 pm each night Milke Productions presents the free event “Bitchin Kitchen”, a live cook-off where a local chef goes up against two different comedians each night. I’m not sure what was supposed to be funny about it this event. The “ninja”, who delivered the food, had no personality and the ingredients were not really that difficult to cook with. We left not far into it for the quieter space downstairs where those who wished to, could smoke.

2 – 26 April, Tue-Sat 8.30pm, Sun 7.30pm

Melb Town Hall – Regent Room

Hannah Gadsby

What lovely evening I have had. It started Hannah Gadsby’s delightfully humorous and slightly disrespectful walk through Australian arts history 1890’s to 1940’s. Hannah is so clear and easy to follow, yet intelligent and insightful in what she share’s with her audience, I was entertained and educated. For me that is the best dorm of theater.

1-25th April, Tues-Sun, 8.30pm

Trades Hall, Allende

2 Lygon St, Carlton Sth

Hex and the City

I want to know why no one has picked this gem of a performer up! I’m not just saying that because I know her personally, I know Scott Gooding too. Hex and the City is a one woman commentary on what it is to be a performer, single, childless and irreligious.

Geraldine is an amazing singer and a very good song writer. Her sung and spoken comedy is pithy, witty, bitter and scathing. The narrative needs a little work but the over all arch of her show is outrageously funny and thoroughly entertaining! And FYI Jesus owes her $50 bucks!

I know I already mentioned Hannah Gadsby, but I saw her AGAIN last night and OMG I almost wet my self laughing. She is amazing. She also has a couple other one off shows at Gasworks in addition to her headline show, Kiss Me Quick I’m Full of Jubes.

Later in the evening I caught the Free @ Trades Eurovision competition. Each Friday night through out the festival comedians will compete to see who will represent Australia in the 2010 Eurovison Song Contest (so they tell us any way). Our lovely hostess, whose name I cannot recall, was as entertaining as the performers, playing the seductive “Mrs Robinson” and flirting outrageously with all the young male performers.

Each contestant sung one cover and one original song and were to be judged on “performance, dance moves, costume and X factor” by the audience.

First up was Zac Adams (The Tuxedo Cat at the Nicholas Building), who’s song about a crazy girl friend was mildly amusing. Who’s For Tennis upped the funny stakes with a rendition of a song from Disney’s Little Mermaid and their original song “Flirty”. Rock Cabaret queen, Geraldine Quinn (Hex and The city, Trades Hall) certainly sounded and looked the most like a Eurovison performer and had my vote. Garbed in navy velvet and sequins she sung Waterloo followed by an original companion song “Gallipoli” which was incredibly sophisticated and witty.

However the winners of this heat were Luke and Wyatt (Albert’s Party, Arthur’s Bar at Rosati) who sung about a party no one comes to except their parents.

You can see Free @ Trades events most evenings in the Bella Union bar at Trades Hall, Lygon Street.

1 – 11 April Tue-Sun 7pm

Trades Hall – The Quilt Room

2 Lygon St, Carlton Sth

I wasn’t particularly keen to see The Wireless. It had been performed before at the fringe festival and I had been told by a number of people it wasn’t very good or even that funny. I was pleasantly surprised.

It tells the story of a regional radio station and the clichéd characters who work there; the “celebrity announcer”, the geeky sound engineer, crazy receptionist, smarmy sales manager and the newbie newsreader. Each character was brilliantly crafted and with idiosyncratic quirks. Add that to a pacy script and tight comic timing with quality performers, and you have a recipe for success. One aspect I particularity enjoyed was the distinctly Australian flavor, with the news and pre-recorded channel brandings reminding me of my time living in regional Victoria.

Curious about why this piece would have had such damning reports, I approached the actors and director in the bar to investigate further. Apparently the last season had been a huge disappointment to them all. Actress Elke Osadnik said, “we had used puppets for the male’s roles and it didn’t work so well.”

This show has been completely re-written, a new director brought on board and some roles re-cast. I can say with enthusiasm that the 2 years of hard work has paid off. The Wireless is now a very funny and well crafted piece of theater.

The Georgiana Monologues
2 – 25 April
Tue-Sat 7pm, Sun 6pm
Forum Theatre – Ladies’ Lounge *
Cnr Flinders & Russell Sts, Melbourne

Tuesday night I had the pleasure of seeing George McEncroe perform in the Ladies Lounge at the Forum. As the middle child of 5 and mother of four this lady has earned a 50 minute monologue. The Georgiana Monologues was good old fashioned stand-up. Drawing on her childhood George has crafted a fine tuned show. I say crafted because stand up needs to be. As well as having good content, the timing has to be right and the narrative needs to unfold in a certain order to work.

George started the show with what was obviously new material, improvising some laughs about her recent job loss at MIX 101. I must say I was shocked when I heard she has been fired so unceremoniously! All I can say is that they are fools!  I find it hard to believe this is her first festival show. Watch this lady – she is sure to become a well loved regular on the Comedy Scene. Read this and weep MIX 101.

Tom Ballard is who he is
2 – 26 April
Tue-Sat 8.15pm, Sun 7.15pm
Forum Theatre – Ladies’ Lounge *
Cnr Flinders & Russell Sts, Melbourne

Sitting in the bar after George’s show, a fresh faced young fellow approached me and my plus-one and offered us tickets to the next show in the Ladies Lounge. Tom Bollard is only 19 and having grown up in Warnabul, regional Victoria, coming out as gay was always going to be a challenge. Lucky for Tom it wasn’t too traumatic plus has been good material for his first solo show.

It was while watching his show that I realized the crafting needed to make stand up work. While he had good material his timing was not great and his insecurities showed as he belabored certain moments trying to get laughs. That being said I think he has a lot of potential; he simply has not found his own style yet. There were some lovely moments of physical theatre, often combined with recorded music and his own singing, which is hardly surprising as he mentioned a number of times about his love of musical theatre.

Humour Australia® presents
Zara & Troy in “Happy Endings”
April 2-26, 2009  |  7pm Tues-Sat  |  6pm Sun*
*PLEASE NOTE – There is NO SHOW Sunday 19th April
Arthur’s Bar, ACDC Lane, Melbourne
(entry via Rosatis, Flinders Lane)

I was slightly nervous when, in her opening line, Zara welcomed us to “the only interactive show in the festival”. Troy and Zara, a married couple who seem to have found their own happy ending together on and off-stage, couch their show under the guise of a talk show. Thankfully the guests featured were mostly the endearing couple role playing oddly accented characters with slightly wrong views. The show deliberated on the topic of “happy endings” using well-linked sketches scattered with amusing, boppy, pop style songs. Zara featured as star of the show, taking prominence throughout much of the piece, though I’m not sure this was intentional and Troy is equally as interesting and entertaining. The Swindles-Gross duo are two polished, talented actors of a very high calibre and the material, while not ingenious, is thoughtful and great fun!

Alice: Through the Looking Glass

April 14 to 25

Trades Hall, corner of Lygon & Victoria Streets, Carlton

Bookings: www.comedyattrades.com.au, telephone 03 9775 3797 and at the door

Having two step-kids and friends with children getting bored over the school holidays, I decided to seek out a kids show. 10 year old twins Siena and Jaxon Franzi accompanied me to see this version of Lewis Carroll’s classic novel.  The show was performed in episodic sketches by three actors with Jo Bourke singing and playing the keyboard, dressed as one of the white chess pawns. It set a cracking pace moving from one set of crazy, zany scenarios to another without a hitch. Brydie Lee-Kennedy playing the young Alice certainly looked the part of the precocious, wide eyed Alice, but her performance was somewhat condescending which I felt alienated anyone older than about 5 years old (the Franzi Twins agreed with this observation). This was unfortunate as I could see was a capable actor. Sophie Miller and Patrick Magee, who masqueraded as multiple characters, were eminently more respectful of their audience and therefore more entertaining as they hurtled from one character to the next without missing a beat. Magee, for all of us, was the stand out performer, with some of the best doubling of parts I have ever seen. The kids spent the whole car ride home imitating him! Every time he was on stage the whole show lifted and the laughter level rose.

Eric Hutton’s Jokey Joke Time 

7^th-25^th April, 7pm

Old Melbourne Gaol

Young Eric Hutton did one of the most pointless things as he opened his show. He explained to us what the structure and concept of the show was going to be. Theatre is about DOING not about explanations. His material was mostly anecdotal stand-up and observations on concepts, situations and people he has encountered. A self confessed daydreamer I wonder how much he connect with real people on a day to day basis, as he was unable to look at us directly and engage us. I guess he just lacks X-factor. His opening trick was to get words or phrases from the audience and free-style some amusing rap. It was not very rhythmic or clever and fell flat somewhat, especially as we were a bunch of smart asses throwing words like concupiscence and antidisestablishmentarianism at him. Well if one will claim to be starting out with material that is highbrow and intellectual, of course I was going to bring my mate with a MA in Bio-medicine! There were some cute moments but both his material and performance style needs a fair bit of work. Actually I’ll rephrase that; Eric needs some funnier material and to learn how to perform.

Re-tale

15 – 25 April, Wed-Sat 9.15pm

St Martins Irene Mitchell Studio, 44 St Martins Lane, South Yarra

Having worked in Retail since I was 14, I was very keen to see this show when it was first presented in last year’s fringe festival, but I missed it.  Super trendy trash bags Dash and DeBree are trying to while away the hours in a quiet clothing boutique. The girls and the director have done a marvelous job creating these two characters you will love to hate and be oh so familiar with from every shopping trip you ever had down Chapel Street.  Using outrageous, bitchy dialogue between the gals the play breaks out into overtly stylized verbal and finally physical slap downs between the two co-workers that are truly cringe worthy. The ongoing banter between the ladies is interrupted by interactions with customers as the girls run through litanies of clichéd greetings. The show has the potential to be side splitting funny but just didn’t quite make it, as the snappy tempo that the piece requires was sorely missing, making what should have been fast paced show lag. The repetition was also taken too far, belaboring and drawing out moments beyond the punch line leaving the audience waiting for them to get on with it. Never the less this show is well worth seeing, especially if you have worked in retail or are a shopaholic.