Squirrel Comedy – Page 117 – We're Nuts About Australian Comedy

Hannah Gadsby – Nanette

By Lisa Clark

It’s genuinely difficult to write about this astonishing, fearless, gut-wrenching show. If you are a fan you cannot miss it, if not you probably should see it anyway.

While skillfully written and brilliantly performed by Hannah at her most eloquent and charismatic, Nanette remains raw and stark. There are no bells and whistles to this show, it is a beautifully written letter to her comedy fans to explain some big life decisions. It’s a reminiscence of her life, and a look at how she has cooked up some raw life experiences into more palatable comedy routine fodder. She revisits familiar routines and shows us the reality behind the comedy curtain.

Hannah doesn’t owe us anything and she makes that clear but she gives us one hell of a show anyway. Even her art history comedy fans are given the gift of an evisceration of society’s relationship with Van Gogh, his art and his mental illness. Something Melbournians can keep in mind when going to see the Van Gough exhibition that starts at NGV later this month. At the same time Hannah explores her own art and its connection with her mental issues and the love of family.

This feels like another MICF show that has been born out of the darkness of 2016. World upheavals over the past year have left us all feeling dismayed and have also led to a reassessment of Hannah’s life that she needs to share with us. It is often very funny, but Hannah is not afraid to take a break from the laughter and the relaxed, clumsy dag that we know, and talk brutally and directly to us about some serious, heartfelt, personal stuff. Hannah is mad as hell, but also more confident, about her craft and her self.

It’s so great to live in a city where we have a Comedy Festival that is a safe space for this kind of brave theatre. Take a loved one to this show so you can hug them afterwards and hang out for a while afterwards to talk and decompress.

Nanette is on at Melbourne Town Hall (Lower Town Hall) until April 23
https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2017/shows/hannah-gadsby-nanette

Anne Edmonds – No Offence, None Taken

By Elyce Phillips

Anne Edmonds has been killing it lately. Coming off a Director’s Choice win and a Barry nomination at last year’s MICF, she continues her run of strong work with No Offence, None Taken – a brilliant hour of stand-up about family, relationships and men.

At the centre of No Offence, None Taken is a holiday Edmonds took with a friend. Left stranded on an island due to inclement weather, Edmonds spends the day venting at her mate. It’s a simple, clever device that allows Edmonds to move from story to story with ease, and cover a diverse range of topics.

There’s something deeply familiar in all of Edmonds’ tales. They paint a picture of Australia that’s a bit crusty and weird. There’s the creepy family running a business where Edmonds had her first job. There’s the hypermasculine dad at a caravan park who isn’t quite as good as he thinks he is. If you’re not a bit dysfunctional, you’re the weird one in Edmonds’ world, and it’s a sentiment that rings very true.

Edmonds is a brilliant performer and brings characters to life in a very vivid manner. Her stand-up is enhanced by her ability to slip into the voices and mannerisms of everyone she talks about. It really rounds out these people, making them more sympathetic than if they were simply a punch-line told in Edmonds’ own voice. And, more importantly, her impersonations are also utterly hilarious . A section in which Edmonds performed as a shoe saleswoman was a particular highlight that had the audience in stitches.

No Offence, None Taken is a must-see for lovers of stand-up. Anne Edmonds gets better with every passing year.

No Offence, None Taken is on at the Victoria Hotel Banquet Room until April 23
https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2017/shows/anne-edmonds

Sam Simmons : A-K

By Angela East

Sam Simmons is known for his wacky, nonsensical comedy, and he certainly doesn’t fail to deliver with that again in A-K. The premise is that a reviewer in the UK said Simmons could read the phone book and still be funny, so A-K is ostensibly based on that to see if that’s true, but it is also, he says, a show about badminton, and future technology.

Simmons moves through subjects quickly combining visual gags and non-sequiturs. At times he toes the line of being offensive and he jokingly berates the audience if they don’t seem to get it. It’s something for later, he assures us, and if we walk out we will miss that. And throughout the hour we do see the reason behind the madness.

There’s interrogation of the audience members when they leave to use bathrooms, which seemed to happen quite often during this particular performance. This gives Simmons a chance to do some small bits of impro, though at times these interruptions seem to be a distraction and he quips, “this is why I’m not on Whose Line is it Anyway”.

Suburban shopping centres provide an anchor for stories; generic food court Asian food, grannies on a day out, and how he met his wife in a shopping centre car park, which leads to now: seven years on they have just had a daughter. Like many new parent comedians his show addresses his new parenthood status. The musings and antics turn to nipples, other Dads’ advice, midwives and a fantasy giant slip and side adventure.

Simmons is thinking about his legacy now he’s a father, but he has not abandoned the silly stage antics the idiosyncratic performance style featuring voice-over gags, random acts of silliness and unflattering costume changes that his fans love.

Simmons opened the show warbling an aria, dressed like a cross between a clown and choirboy, and that perhaps sums up the pertinent theme in the show: what if you’re an idiot man child just trying to do something good? It may at times feel little confusing and may not all be successful, but there will still be big laughs.

A-K is on at the Forum Theatre until April 23rd
https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2017/shows/sam-simmons-a-k

Michael Williams – Escape from a 90s Educational CD-ROM!

By Colin Flaherty

For the past 23 years, Michael Williams has been trapped inside the computer program Hello Learning 1994. Here he has lived with his captor / friend Jobe The Globe in begrudging peace…that is before the bugs started taking over. Combining animation and live acting, Williams takes us on a hilariously wild and ridiculous ride as he performs his Broadway stage show about Colonel Harland David Sanders (what else is he gonna do with his time?), introduces us to his famous historical friends and heroically fights computer bugs.

It wouldn’t be a Michael Williams show without lots of pop culture, celebrity and movie references, and this 90s theme lets him include many from that time period. We get an amusing nostalgia trip in the midst of a wacky story that also manages to get in some witty digs at the modern world.

Williams has set himself the gargantuan task of performing to a rigid script with audio and visual cues that need to be hit exactly; a far cry from his usual ramshackle delivery that we know and love. While he does tend to drift from the scripted words and comes in early with physical gestures he tends to get laughs from them with a well placed look of comical frustration. Along with his appropriately dishevelled appearance (you certainly wouldn’t look spiffy in the same situation) it allows him to exploit the lovable loser aspect of his stage persona for both sympathy and chuckles.

His program design combines his signature animation style with the layout of these types of software titles with a brilliant attention to detail. The encyclopaedia entries are quite comprehensive which contain lots of amusing misinformation and jokes relating to the story. You often wish that you could pause the show to read through them all. He has created a wonderful lived in universe that has a clever logic to it and a beautiful frozen in time aesthetic.

This ambitious and satisfying performance is a tour de force in lo-fi / hi-tech, all singing and dancing, animation / live action mashup. It’s impressive in its scope, often poignant and regularly gutbusting. A perfect way to spend your time at the festival.

Escape from a 90s Educational CD-ROM! is on at ACMI until April 23
https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2017/shows/escape-from-a-90s-educational-cd-rom

David O’Doherty – Big Time

By Elyce Phillips

The world has become a bit crap lately, but David O’Doherty wants to save us all. One big show to fix everything and make it all okay again. Well, Big Time may not solve the many problems that surround us, but it will certainly make you laugh and help you feel better about the state of things, even if it’s just for a moment.

O’Doherty is an MICF staple and is always a reliable go-to for clever quips and silly songs. This year is no different. The little keyboard is here, as always, but Big Time is more stand-up than song. We hear stories about O’Doherty’s misadventures as a Twitter influencer, going shopping with his niece and dealing with hecklers at children’s book readings. The musical interludes are quirky and occasionally a little dark, covering topics from the great minds of the world to specific apologies to one woman he wronged while in Melbourne last year.

Running throughout the show are themes of chaos and perspective. We all get caught up in our own dilemmas and they feel like the end of the world, but then you take a step back and suddenly things don’t feel so bad. It’s the sort of theme that could easily drift into the maudlin or the sappy, but O’Doherty navigates the territory deftly. He’s a talented stand-up that can venture into risky territory and still keep the audience onside. The songs acted as a perfect punctuation, pushing the show from great stand-up into something just that bit extra.

Big Time is a tonne of fun for both fans and newcomers. O’Doherty is an absolute delight. There’s a good reason he keeps packing out big venues year after year.

David O’Doherty – Big Time is on at The Forum Upstairs until April 23
https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2017/shows/david-o-doherty

Luke Joseph Ryan – Merry Christmas ISIS

By Elyce Phillips

Luke Joseph Ryan has got one of the more interesting show names in the festival this year. Merry Christmas ISIS is a hell of a title to backup, and Ryan just about manages to do it. It’s a show with plenty of laughs, but also a few hiccups along the way.

Merry Christmas ISIS starts out strong with a delightfully weird, thematically-relevant musical opening, before leading into some solid stand-up. Ryan’s material on everything from balding to swimming pool sanitation to sword-loving relatives is wonderfully funny. Some jokes dance on the border of good taste, and Ryan delights in these moments of discomfort. He’s got a cheeky persona that keeps you on-board, regardless of the topic.

The show gets a little meta at times. Some things go wrong and it’s clearly all a part of the act, but then other things go wrong and you’re not quite sure if that’s part of the joke too. It all became a bit blurred by the fact that the room was filled with Ryan’s friends and then me, a lone reviewer, and so the show took on a more casual tone than perhaps was normal. Every now and then Ryan would mention that the show wasn’t going all that well, which again, may have been part of the joke but it disrupted the flow of the gig. What was intended as self-deprecating humour fell flat, as Ryan pointed out, because his friends showed genuine concern – unlike a regular audience.

Merry Christmas ISIS is shambolic but fun. There’s some great jokes in here, but the show could benefit from a little more structural clarity and a little less self-deprecation to ensure they really shine.

Luke Joseph Ryan – Merry Christmas ISIS is on at Tasma Terrace until April 8
https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2017/shows/merry-christmas-isis