The Lioness : Peggy Babcock, Peggy Babcock, Peggy Babcock

By Colin FlahertyThe Lioness

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 Jacqueline Mifsud

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

5 Good Reasons to see Juan Miles – Villain

1- The guy is seriously charming and his accent is delicious.

2- It’s scary how easily he gets you to laugh at some of the horrible stuff he jokes about.

3- Like seriously, you’ll lose all self-respect for you as a moral being..

4- But funny, dark, charming and delicious accent? It’s probably worth it.

5- Only one way to find out.

Juan Miles performs his show at Speakeasy-HQ  April 11-15 and 18-22

For information and tickets go to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Website

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2017/shows/villain

5 good reasons to see Matt Harvey: Just for funny Podcast

1. The comedy podcast has been enjoying a successful run on iTunes for around a year and a half. So we know what we are doing.

2. Previous guests have had 5 star shows, award winning shows, and sell out shows. So this might be the best chance you get to see something new and exciting.

3. You love being the first to know about a thing. Our comedians are some of our favourite comedians you’ve never seen, but they are great.

4. Just for Funny is a podcast that presents snippets of the finest up and coming comedians we know of and presents them to you so you can take some of the guess work out of learning about new comedians. You can get a taste of the show on youtube so its not like you’re even taking a chance really. Go on and listen. Its a lot of fun.

5. We have gone to thousands of hours of open mic comedy. It can be a tough slog. We then filtered and distilled those hours down to these fine comedians. Don’t let us waste all those hours.

Matt Harvey & Marty Atta’s live podcast recording of Just For Funny is on Saturdays at The Tickle Pit

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2017/shows/just-for-funny

5 Good Reasons to see Frenchy Unleashed

1      He kinda looks like Sid the Sloth from Ice Age. But with methier eyes.

2      He’s the self-proclaimed King of Tinder.

3      He used to be a teacher. If he fails at comedy he goes back to teaching at high school. For the sake of Australia’s future, you don’t want that to happen.

4      His teaching licence is actually suspended so the above scenario can’t happen.

5      He needs money for new crocs & a lava lamp.

For Information and tickets to see Frenchy Unleashed go to the MICF Website

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2017/shows/frenchy-unleashed

FIVE GOOD REASONS TO SEE…THE JUNIOR MIGHTY LITTLE PUPPET SHOW!

1. It has puppets!

Like the title suggests The Junior Mighty Little Puppet Show has puppets in it…but these puppets are like nothing you’ve seen before.  This brand-new show is specifically designed for kids, but parents will be sure to have a brilliant time as well!

What’s unique about our puppets? They have been custom-built by the extremely talented people at The Puppet Workshop specifically for improvised puppetry.

After making their debut at last years’ Melbourne International Comedy Festival with a more adult orientated format, our puppets (called The Ritas) are thrilled to be back for MICF 2017.  The Ritas are brightly coloured and blank-faced, and we have large selection of eyes & noses that can be attached and removed to The Ritas whenever – and however – we want!

This means we can create new and exciting puppet characters for every performance.

2. Kids can create the characters!

That’s right, the Ritas were specifically created so new puppet characters could be created before each scene. In The Junior Mighty Little Puppet Show the audience will be able to see the characters built before their very eyes, and have the opportunity to vote on their favourite eyes and noses to create characters from!

Some lucky kids will even be able to put the eyes and noses right on to invent the new puppet faces. We wanted our puppets have the potential to be just as spontaneous as the scenes they will be in.

3. It’s a choose your own adventure style show

Not only does the audience play a role in creating the characters, you also get to choose which story you want to see through to the end! Audience members get to vote on which character’s story you want to see continue at each stage, and watch our improvisers build a narrative around that choice!

4. We have an amazing troupe of improvising puppeteers!

For this show we handpicked performers from the Melbourne Comedy and Improvisation community who have experience with puppetry.

It takes an intensely focused performer to improvise while operating a puppet and it takes a very humble, generous performer to improvise in a scene with one.

We’ve really lucked out.

For MICF 2017 we have: Amanda Knights, Caitlin Yolland, Corey Glamuzina, David Innes, Hallie Goodman, Jaime G. Cerda, Jaklene Vukasinovic, Petra Elliott and Scott McAteer

 

5. We have a sensational host!

Our amazing host Rob Lloyd has been working professionally as an actor, comedian & improviser for over 15 years.   Rob is also the star of the ABC Me educational adventure series Bertram Poppingstock: Problem Solver.  Rob is the Artistic Director of The Mighty Littles and is excited to host The Junior Mighty Little Puppet Show.

The Junior Mighty Little Puppet Show is on at The Melbourne Town Hall from April 1 at 2.15

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2017/shows/the-junior-mighty-little-puppet-show