Simon Munnery’s Fylm School

By Elyce Phillips Fylm School pic

Armed with a projector, several cameras, a mirror and a big screen, Simon Munnery creates avant-garde cinema on the fly in Simon Munnery’s Fylm School. It was a one-night-only special event, with a dream team of a guest cast keeping the eager crowd laughing.

Simon Munnery’s Fylm School is an absurdist delight. While Mick Moriarty provided improvised musical accompaniment on guitar, Munnery amused and befuddled the audience in equal measure with his musings on Melbourne’s architecture, Venn diagrams and racism. The projector set-up was used to great effect, particularly with a series of brilliantly lo-fi animations created from paper and various moving pieces. Munnery plays with language and makes it feel effortless. Each little comedic snippet has a musical quality to it, beyond the backing track. Munnery’s words ebb and flow, kick and dart, then smack you across the face with something hilarious. He truly is a unique presence on the comedy scene.

Performing alongside Munnery and Moriarty were a selection of comedy festival guests. Adam Hess flipped through a book of assorted stick-figure drawings on the projector screen, firing off witty one-liners that had the audience in stitches. Alex Edelman told the story of the year his Orthodox Jewish family did Christmas – a tale that was both painfully funny and awfully endearing – using a selection of props and iPhone photos to illustrate the narrative. David O’Doherty rounded out the evening with some business pitches, throwing out some bizarre rapid-fire app ideas accompanied with illustrations.

Simon Munnery’s Fylm School is outside-the-box comedy that plays at the height of the audience’s intelligence. If you’re after a sophisticated dose of silly, hurry to book in should it ever return to Melbourne.

Simon Munnery’s Fylm School was a one-night-only event. Munnery’s other show, And Nothing But, is on at Melbourne Town Hall until April 17.

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2016/season/shows/and-nothing-but-simon-munnery