Clem Bastow – Escape From L.A.

By Elyce Phillips Escape from LA pic

After a run at Bar Open during the Melbourne Fringe, Clem Bastow has brought a new and improved version of Escape From L.A. to the Comedy Festival. For those who missed it the first time around, Bastow tells her story of fleeing to East Hollywood to pursue her dream of becoming a screenwriter. After two years spent scripting in coffee shops, Bastow returned to Australia with a newly-diagnosed mental illness and a wealth of comedy material.

This version of the show is more polished, but still chaotic. You walk in to see Bastow dressed as Dorothy, sitting in her own Oz of L.A., reading Robert McKee and surrounded by scatterings of Starbucks trash. An opening burst of sound effects and snippets of film dialogue from DJ Slig, Bastow’s brother, is as loud and disorienting as the most hectic action sequence of a Hollywood blockbuster. The new set and props add to the mess and distress of Escape From L.A. They’re a wonderfully trashy complement to tales from a trashy city. The antagonistic relationship between Bastow and Slig remains, the latter repeatedly interrupting Bastow with sound effects and unasked-for opinions. Bastow’s stories are well-crafted, relatable and had the audience laughing the whole way through.

The biggest improvement to this iteration of the show is the addition of some new sound pieces, produced by Slig. An extended mental crisis/fantasy acceptance speech sequence during a Kundalini yoga session perfectly straddled the line between discomfort and humour. The pieces pair really well with Bastow’s storytelling and work to simultaneously give the show structure and set it on edge.

Escape From L.A. is even better in its Comedy Festival form.  It’s a show about things not going to plan where things don’t always go to plan. If you’re up for a little mayhem, this is the show for you.

Clem Bastow – Escape From L.A. is on at the Imperial Hotel until April 19

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2015/season/shows/escape-from-la-clem-bastow

Madeleine Culp – Madeleine Schmadeleine

By Lisa Clark madeleine culp

Well it’s pretty obvious what Madeleine Culp is trying to achieve with Madeleine Schmadeleine; deluded TV star on a desperate downward spiral, it’s not a particularly new concept and unfortunately Madeleine Culp isn’t able to bring anything fresh to it or make it work for her as a framework for her comedy festival show.

Madeleine just isn’t convincing as the difficult fame whore she is trying to portray, she is way too gentle and timid. She comes across as totally subservient to her TV show manager (a male voiceover) and her sense of desperation seems all too real as she fails to get the audience laughing. She also doesn’t seem to have the talent to convince us that she has ever been a successful variety TV host in the past, being bad at everything she demonstrates, such as singing, tapping, audience interaction (well it wouldn’t be a 2015 MICF show without that) and storytelling.

Madeleine was surprisingly competent on the recorder though and this could’ve been funny if she’d used it as a more credible background for her character – a recorder player who shot to fame, but she just throws it in to become part of her on camera breakdown which sadly does not work as well as it might if the rest of the show were better. The side plot of her sidekick dog taking over her place in show business doesn’t work because she has paced it badly, without a decent set up of her relationship with the dog and by putting a poster of his show out from the beginning, which robs her of the opportunity to get the surprise laugh.

As a performer who has been around for many years (originally in Cloud Girls with Jen Carnovale nearly ten years ago) with a lot of festival experience, it is surprising to find that her timing is not brilliant and I don’t hear her comedy voice. There seems to be very little attempt at creating strong memorable characters which are all pretty weak. There were obviously some set routines slotted in; some observational material from her job in a Library, a travel tales montage and an enjoyable story about a horrendous whale watching tourism experience done in the manner of an old sea captain telling tales of the sea. There were titters of recognition but few strong laughs. The highlight of the show was the remote control helicopter which again she proved crap at operating but it was at least fun to watch.

It’s a bit of a cop out to do a show with a character who is bad at stuff so that you don’t have to be good at anything on stage. But there is one thing that you do have to be good at in a comedy festival and that is comedy, unfortunately there was little evidence of this in Madeleine Schmadeleine.

Madeleine Schmadeleine is on at Trades Hall til April 19

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2015/season/shows/madeleine-schmadeleine-madeleine-culp

Chris Taylor and Andrew Hansen – In Conversation With Lionel Corn

By Elyce Phillips Chris Taylor and Andrew Hansen

When you walk into the Forum Theatre for In Conversation With Lionel Corn, you could easily be walking into any Wheeler Centre event of the year. Tonight’s guest is Lionel Corn (Andrew Hansen) in discussion with a Radio National host (Chris Taylor).

Taylor does a great job of playing the poncy interviewer. Hansen’s author is bizarre, but consistently so – it’s a nice contrast to Taylor’s straight-laced performance. After some wonderfully silly introductions, we get to the conversation at hand. The opening salvo is perfectly long-winded and wanky. A collection of pre-recorded questions from the audience were a beautiful touch. Some were so subtle that they could have passed for genuine festival questions, clichéd to the point of self-parody.

However, despite a strong start, In Conversation… loses its charm as the show wears on, largely because the show loses focus. The faux event we’re attending is an amalgamation of the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, the Melbourne Writers’ Festival and an episode of Q and A. Lionel Corn himself is part Salman Rushdie, part George RR Martin, part Billy Connolly’s accent. The whole thing is too nebulous to provide any really biting satire. It feels like Taylor and Hansen have tried to cram too much into their characters, and they lose their shape. Tension between Corn and his interviewer that is introduced at the start doesn’t really go anywhere and you don’t get a sense that their relationship develops over the hour.

The jokes strayed into easy stereotypes – fantasy readers are fat, activists whinge about panel diversity. A puerile bit of physical comedy towards the end ran too long and felt disconnected with the tone of the rest of the show. Perhaps this was an attempt to broaden the appeal of the show beyond an audience of lit geeks and #qanda twitter fiends, but it was out of place next to the subtler material.

In Conversation With Lionel Corn is entertaining, but it never quite reaches the heights you hope for. As a long-time fan of the Chaser guys and a big old book nerd, this show should have been right up my alley.

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2015/season/shows/in-conversation-with-lionel-corn-chris-taylor-andrew-hansen

Hunter Smith – I Feel Bad About My Tattoo

By Sofia Monkiewicz Hunter Smith

Tattoos are a permanent fashion choice: one which can either be worn proudly every day for the rest of your life or, if you are like Hunter Smith, be a sad and endless stamp of regret.

Smith really hates his tattoo, and who can blame him? It is hilariously tragic, and a forever reminder of his poor teenage decision-making abilities. Despite this, his shame doesn’t override the comedic potential of his ink embarrassment, and he has created a delightfully self-deprecating, tattoo-focused hour of stand-up.

I Feel Bad About My Tattoo is a very personal show, in which Smith talks about his family, his teenage years, and of course his infamous tattoo, along with many other observations about the ways that people choose to permanently imprint designs on their skin. He details the top three worst types of tattoos that a person can get, and makes some hysterical comments about the moments in time that these artworks represent, and what they have come to signify as the years have passed and fashions have severely changed.

Smith has a wonderful energy that fuels his honest, relatable comedy. He combines his self-esteem issues with some good-natured, light-hearted fun, and has ended up with a show that is both sincere and wildly entertaining. His anecdotes about living on campus while at university and scaring a certain group of students with his ink is very funny, while his short but succinct list of things he dislikes is classic side-splitting observational comedy. Quips about old people and technology, cultural appropriation and his cousin’s appearance on Australia’s Funniest Home Videos are eagerly lapped up by his audience, but the highlight is definitely the big tattoo reveal, which is kept a secret for as long as Smith can manage to hide his shame.

It is difficult to decide whether Smith should be laughed at or pitied for the unfortunate ‘artwork’ etched in his skin, but he has managed to transform his sorrow into enthusiastic entertainment in his 2015 festival show. As soon as he walks on stage, he exclaims that he is going to be presenting a whole bunch of ‘truth bombs’, and he certainly delivers on this promise. I Feel Bad About My Tattoo is brilliantly raw, consistently funny and will probably stop you from going out and getting that Southern Cross tattoo that you thought you truly wanted.

So what exactly is his embarrassing tattoo you ask? You will just have to watch the show to find out…

Hunter Smith’s I Feel Bad About My Tattoo is on at the Owl and the Pussycat until April 19.

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2015/season/shows/i-feel-bad-about-my-tattoo-hunter-smith

Dave Warneke Dates The Entire Audience

By Lisa Clark Dave Warneke Dates The Entire Audience

Having enjoyed Dave Warneke’s work in various group shows, most recently as host of the cute late night Facty Fact celebrity quiz show, I was curious to see Dave’s solo work. Well my curiosity is still not quite sated but I enjoyed Dave Warneke Dates The Entire Audience none the less.

Dave has a comedy side kick – Sam Jenkins who plays Warneke’s drunken manager cum emergency tech-hand and wingman who is the 2nd banana to Dave’s very Straight-Man. He steers the show wildly off course before it has properly begun and was in danger of dominating the show, particularly when Warneke’s main job in the beginning appears to be housekeeping. Though the housekeeping is fairly important in the rather elaborate concept.

This is a production with a very millennial sensibility, it’s got that audience participation thing happening that EVERYONE is doing this festival but is one of the best and clever incarnations I’ve seen and it is pleasingly very optional. It is a sort of Choose Your Own Adventure Show with a specially designed computer program (its surprisingly mature designer was in the audience with us) that takes the audience, via their smart phones, through a set of screens where they can tick boxes or write out suggestions that display on a large projector screen in the form of a pie chart or list. You can see the pie chart change before your eyes as everyone chooses to tick their preferred box which really adds a frisson of excitement to the room.

This adventure decides the show’s direction and reflects the conceit that we are all on a date with Dave.  First up, we must choose a name so that Dave can address us as something more intimate than Audience. The purpose of having Sam Jenkins on stage steering the laptop becomes apparent as he moderates the answers putting the best ones on screen and perhaps weeding out potential lawsuits. Some of them are pretty filthy but we settle on naming ourselves Audrey. The multiple-choice questions we answer include picking the movie we will see on our date (Titanic) the Restaurant (Thai-tanic a real restaurant with hilariously dreadful on-line reviews that are read out after we choose it) and a venue for a second date.

The beauty of this is that every show will be a little different, though occasionally we are given an illusion of choice or have it, sort-of, made for us. I can’t imagine an audience NOT choosing to play the game option ‘Is it Porn’ and Dave jokingly pretty much confirms this. In amongst all this game playing Dave does crack out some actual jokes, tell some conventionally funny tales, shares some very silly pre-recorded segments and he and Sam keep things rolling along nicely. The audience, sorry Audrey, also brings a lot of the laughs to the performance and overall whether you are playing along or not this date proves to be a whole heap of fun

Dates can be unpredictable and occasionally hazardous, you have to make yourself vulnerable and Dave has definitely given himself a risky enterprise with this production. Comedians often joke about how their work reflects a desperate need to be loved by their audience and here every night Dave is asking to be loved and risking rejection by letting us decide if we would date him again. Luckily Audrey was pretty into him and unsurprisingly enjoyed the date.

Dave Warneke clearly has ambitions as a funny host rather than standard solo stand up comedian and he certainly has great hosting skills but it would be good to see more work put into the comedic writing rather than funny stunts which are often a great way to fill a festival show hour and seem to be a feature of most of his work. Still this is an ambitious, audacious and entertaining hour that would be a great show to take your single friends to. You never know where things might lead.

Dave Warneke Dates The Entire Audience at The Tuxedo Cat until April 19th (Not Wednesdays)

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2015/season/shows/dates-the-entire-audience-dave-warneke

Gentlemen of Deceit – Incognito

By Sofia Monkiewicz Incognito

Who doesn’t love a magic show? It’s not hard to enjoy being amazed by impossible illusions, astounded by card tricks, and blown away by disappearing objects. Magicians are generally pretty charismatic by definition, as they need to gain the trust and attention of their audience, but the Gentlemen of Deceit are much more than your standard magicians. These guys know how to do comedy as well.

The Gentlemen of Deceit illusionist trio is made up of Luke Hocking, Alex de la Rambelje and Vyom Sharma; all charming, all funny, and all unbelievably talented. Their latest creation is Incognito, which showcases their abilities in a fun and interactive performance in which they dazzle their audience with an array of unexplainable tricks, all carried out with a cheeky smile and an infectious sense of humour.

Most people walk into a magic show with a cynical attitude and a dedication to attempting to pinpoint exactly how the illusionists perform their tricks. These gentlemen make that impossible. From the moment they walk onto the stage, the magicians grab hold of your focus and shift it to wherever it needs to be, allowing them to shock and enthral everyone in the room, and maintain a relaxed and playful attitude that is impossible to distrust. They seamlessly take turns to perform their tricks, communicating fluidly with the audience at all times so it feels as though we each play an important part in the magic they create.

Sharma seems to be the real joker of the trio; he is relaxed, engaging, and isn’t afraid to laugh along with the audience, particularly with those he selects to take part in his onstage antics. The ever-charming Hocking is a smooth operating illusionist, who specialises in being the ‘escape artist’ of the team. He astonishes his avid audience with impossible imagery, where his body seems to be able to move through solid objects. de la Rambelje is the more serious member of this trio of deceptive gentlemen, but only by comparison. Theatrical and enchanting, with some fairly mediocre drawing skills, his ‘health smoothie’ act leaves everybody both completely impressed and incredibly confused.

Shows like Incognito require meticulous preparation to make everything run smoothly, and Sharma, Hocking and de la Rambelje, along with director Daniel Cammin, have put together a deceptively effortless production. The pace is appropriately fast, the timing impeccable, and the illusions unbelievable, and it all wraps up with a grand finale that will, quite simply, blow your mind.

These magicians are delightfully deceitful, and will leave you on the edge of your seat desperately wondering just how they are able to consistently fool their admiring crowd. And as you exit the room, there is only one possible explanation for this ridiculously phenomenal performance: it must be magic.

Incognito is on at Trades Hall until April 19.

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2015/season/shows/incognito-gentlemen-of-deceit