MICF 2017 – Page 12 – Squirrel Comedy

Claire Sullivan – I Wish I Owned A Hotel For Dogs

By Elyce Phillips

Claire Sullivan loves dogs, and who doesn’t? They’re pure of heart, full of energy and easy to adore. In I Wish I Owned A Hotel For Dogs, Sullivan has created a show that embodies all of these qualities. It’s weird and fast-paced and heartfelt and you won’t see anything else like it this festival.

I Wish I Owned A Hotel For Dogs contains elements of so many things – storytelling, poetry, good exercise regimes, Crufts – and pounces between them at the pace of an overexcited pupper. You’re never in one section for long and nothing outstays its welcome.

From the moment you enter the venue, Sullivan draws you in with the weird physicality of her “pre-show” stretches. Her use of Belleview’s unconventional space is wonderful, helping to differentiate between different sections of the show. Sullivan’s clowning background with PO PO MO CO really shines through when she’s interacting with the audience. All the moments of participation are welcoming and serve to bring the audience together.

The tone of the show is hectic and messy and over-the-top, yet every individual piece feels like a perfectly crafted chunk of ridiculousness. Sullivan’s comedic style is absurd, feminist and incredibly positive. Buried within the glitter and fur are deeper thoughts about what it means to navigate the world as a female – small bursts of truth before you’re whisked away, back to the realm of the bizarre.

Sullivan attacks this show with such frenetic energy, you walk out absolutely buzzing, like you’ve had maybe one more coffee than is advisable. I Wish I Owned A Hotel For Dogs is unabashedly silly and a must-see for lovers of dogs and nonsense. It’s the perfect way to kick off a night of festival going.

Claire Sullivan – I Wish I Owned A Hotel For Dogs is on at Belleview until Saturday April 8
https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2017/shows/i-wish-i-owned-a-hotel-for-dogs

3 Little Gigs

By Lisa Clark

3 Little Gigs is like a plate of hors d’oeuvres before a big name dish at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. It’s a show that has been running for several years early in the evening so you can check out a trio of young talented new comers, have some dinner then see a favourite.

The performers doing 3 Little Gigs, Nick O’Connell, Bec Charlwood and Rhi Down, are all young comedians who’ve only being hitting stages for a few years but have all been RAW finalists and are from far flung parts of Australia. They are all doing straight stand up with no bells and whistles with a theme about younger generation’s openness about their sexuality and frankness about pornography.

Nick o’Connell, originally from Adelaide but now settled in Melbourne, has stories of travel and of his experience as a History teacher, especially Catholic schools. He has a pleasant gentle style with some disturbing and dark notes, such as revealing that he hates kids and when discussing dating he declares that he’s a “Weapon on the tinnies” and “Mad Dog’s Arrived”, I’m hoping he’s using these ironically, but it is a bit hard to tell.

Bec Charlwood from Perth is dry in her delivery and very confident on stage. She talked about porn and sexuality then about how liberating it is to be a woman talking about these erstwhile taboo topics.

Nerdy and somewhat gothy, Rhi Down is from Brisbane and as well as talking about her sexlife Rhi keeps pet rats that she refers to as her ratbabies. Confident and bubbly she has a genuine natural funniness that will mature well.

All three performers have what it takes to entertain an audience, they are all confident, good storytellers and can find laughs in every day things. Like most of our best comedians they are beginning by dipping their toes into the Festival circuit to exhibit their work on a shared bill and will take time to mature before they are ready for a solo show.

When strangers or people at work ask what they should see at MICF, I always suggest they pick someone they like from TV or radio who will now doubt be a sure thing, then pick someone they don’t know at all. This is a great little show to see new comedians that you will want to keep an eye on in the future.

3 Little Gigs is on at The Imperial Hotel

For tickets and further information go to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival website:

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2017/shows/3-little-gigs

GILLIAN COSGRIFF : 8 SONGS IN 8 WEEKS

By Angela East

Gillian Cosgriff has a problem—she is a procrastinator. Like many of us, she finds the endless warren of information online a source of distraction that leads her astray from doing all the mundane tasks she actually needs to focus on, like doing laundry or writing new material for her shows. So, in November last year she set herself the project of writing a song a week, for 8 weeks, and the result is this fun filled hour of cabaret.

Gillian’s friendly manner had the audience on side from the start with the upbeat opening number Totally Fine, about her procrastinating ways and turning 30. Each of her weekly musical offerings are played through in the order written, and range in theme from those funny Night Thoughts that keep you from getting to sleep, to the more sentimental December the 23^rd, about the anticipation and traditions of her family’s Christmas. By the third song of the set Gillian easily gets the audience to join in with her with some chorus call back.

Song highlights included Regular Lady (Goes to a Nightclub), a non-party animal’s party anthem, to counteract all those Bruno Mars confidence-hoarder types; and Finding Felicia Coco, in which a chance encounter with an exotic name in her inbox fed imaginative tales of who Felicia may be, and what fantastic life she might be having.

Along with the 8 songs she had created during those 8 weeks, Gillian takes suggestions from the audience to create an improvised song, performed near the end of the show. Tonight it was an audience member Edina’s birthday that provided the inspiration. In between songs and banter Gillian chatted to Edina and her daughters about what she liked, and deftly incorporated a sushi dinner, tree top adventuring, and Heston Blumenthal cook books into a fun personalised song. Gillian mentioned that the previous performance she was given the topic of menstrual cups, so you never know what the song may be. It is great to see her show off her solid improvisational skills.

Gillian proves that while procrastinating online might be her weakness, all that time following fun facts on the Internet has been useful after all, with the weird and interesting stories she’s come across inspiring laughs and providing the inspiration for her songs and spoken performance in a delightful way. Much like following links on the web you are led from ghost ships, to righteous Facebook posts, to beauty tips that just may not go as well in real life as the internet might have you led you to believe.
8 songs in 8 weeks is a joyful hour by a confident performer.

Gillian Cosgriff 8 songs in 8 weeks is on at Butterfly Club until April 9th

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2017/shows/gillian-cosgriff

5 good reasons to see Des Bishop’s Grey Matters

1. The last 15 minutes of my shell is like the best sex therapy you will ever experience. Many previously difficult moments in the bedroom will no longer be a problem after you see the show.

2. If you are like me and you don’t have kids you will love my observations on what it’s like watching your friends all have them. If you are like my friends and you have kids you will absolutely love listening to what you look like to the single side of the world.

3. If you have a thing for Irish people then my show will be one of the best places to meet an Irish person in the whole of Melbourne. If you Snapchat me @desbuffer in advance of the show I might even announce on stage that a lovely Australian has a thing for Irish people man or a woman I am happy to be the matchmaker.

4. I have recently learned how to dance and there is no Way to guarantee the show won’t turn into a disco party at the end.

5. For the lads I have some great suit choices that might inspire some fashion ideas and for the ladies I look great in a suit!

Des Bishop’s Grey Matters is on at The Greek Centre

For Information and tickets go to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival website

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2017/shows/des-bishop-grey-matters

The Lioness : Peggy Babcock, Peggy Babcock, Peggy Babcock

By Colin Flaherty

The title and advertising for Peggy Babcock, Peggy Babcock, Peggy Babcock gives absolutely nothing away as to what you can expect from this show. What this onesie clad duo do deliver is some brilliant sketch madness that delights, surprises and has you in serious fits of laughter.

The Lioness (Charlie Ranger and Michael ‘Spank’ Argus) are loud, boisterous and sell the shit out of the material. However they are so much more than just shouty actors hoping that their volume is enough to amuse, they also have plenty of wonderful lines of stupidity, fun wordplay and clever movie references up their sleeves. They bounce off each other effortlessly with Argus usually playing the fool and Ranger as straight man. Each get their share of hilarious lines within this top notch script so one doesn’t hog the limelight over the other. There is enough room for the boys to dick about and get meta on our asses but they don’t stray too far and keep the show rolling on.

What intrigues me most is the way they handle social and political satire. They walk a fine line between parodying their targets and spouting the rhetoric verbatim but where they excel is pushing the ideas to the limit and taking them into some truly inspired and silly places. When some scenes veer into dark territory, a similar treatment ensures that there is some lightness at the end of the tunnel. Then they surprise the audience with huge show stopping belly laughs.

Some sketches tend to go way past their natural end point but, surprisingly, they reward you for sticking with it, with some brilliant twists and turns. A clearly signposted segment of improvisation around a mime Television doesn’t really go anywhere and seems to be an excuse to amuse themselves rather the punters but they do manage to get a few smartarse cracks out of it. They transitioned from sketch into sketch super smoothly and usually continued the themes well. This ultimately impressive show is structured with a loose but deliberate overall narrative that other sketch shows usually overlook.

With impeccable comic timing and ability to handle any distraction thrown at them with ease, you have a highly polished show that nails 80 percent of the sketches; an impressive hit rate. See these guys immediately, so you can say that you saw them before they blew up…or drowned in their own sweat.

Peggy Babcock, Peggy Babcock, Peggy Babcock is on at Tasma Terrace until April 8
https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2017/shows/i-don-t-listen-to-a-lot-of-rap

Jacqueline Mifsud : Sink Full of Forks

By Lisa Clark

I’ll say upfront that I missed the first 5 – 10 minutes due to the horrendous city traffic, even on a Tuesday night. I missed the opening so there might be a something at the beginning that brought the audience in and pulled the whole performance together, but I don’t think it would change this review.

In Jacqueline Mifsud’s last Festival show that Squirrel reviewed she took the audience on a comedy tour and played a French tour guide character in We’ll only have Paris. In Sink Full of Forks Jacqueline is being herself, talking about what she’s been up to since she came home from Paris.

She’s got a lot to talk about but doesn’t quite know how to squish it into a coherent show that has a purpose. Is she working through the loneliness after a romantic breakup? Is she dealing with her love hate relationship with her recent career as a receptionist and changing her career / life direction? Is she working out a nervous breakdown? Then there’s her insecurities about her irritating skin condition. It’s a little all over the place without really getting into the nitty gritty of any of these topics and things are amusing with the odd laugh rather than full on funny. As a wise trio of Melbourne comediennes once proved, Comedy is not pretty. You usually have to get into the ugly side of situations to get to the belly laughs.

Jacqueline is charming and brimming with stories she’s bursting to get out in a rush. The main problem is that Jacqueline has not found her comedy voice. Her timing is out, she is telling stories that are often amusing but either they don’t have a decent punchline, or she doesn’t sell the punchline properly. She tends to throw potentially funny lines aside casually. Some comedians come with their ‘comedy voice’ naturally formed, others take a while to find it. Jacqueline’s style is theatrical and hostess-like which keeps a distance between her and the audience. Maybe she was rushing out of nerves and remembering the script for her show in her head, hopefully she will calm down and find her feet with the material as the Festival goes along.

Not an unpleasant way to spend an hour at the Festival but Jacqueline needs to really find herself and her comedy style before she can put herself on the comedy stage. It’s time for her to throw off the receptionist demeanour because we are there to see her.

Sink Full of Forks is on at Tasma Terrace until April 8
https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2017/shows/jacqueline-mifsud-sink-full-of-forks