Category: Reviews

Wake Up, Sheeple! by Sam Rankin

By Colin Flaherty

With the title Wake Up, Sheeple! and its advertising material (text manually typed with the classified content blacked out) this show had my mind racing as to what it could be. The most obvious scenario would have been the demented rantings of a lunatic played for laughs. Instead what we got was a fun comedic lecture about all things conspiratorial. To top it off, our host was a genuinely friendly fellow; far from the unstable basement dweller or ‘enlightened’ stoner we may have been expecting.

Sam Rankin explored a number of conspiracy theories and showed us the laughably flimsy reasoning behind them. The ridiculousness of those theories were presented with lots of visual aids, audio clips and many witty quips. This field can be easy to ridicule so he used many cleverly amusing concepts to get his points across. He avoided going for the obvious punchlines and added some wonderful jokes from different angles which were so much stronger.

He delved deeper with some songs and a bit of role-playing with audience members. His opening night audience obliged with minimal prompting as he went to great lengths to maintain a non-threatening environment. We were like putty in his hands (gullible fools, perhaps?).

Linking the topics was Dale, a junior member of the Illuminati getting a grilling by an unseen superior. It involved some wonderful character work by Rankin who, with his cape and aluminium foil hat, played an adorably naïve guy whose ambitions for world domination fell well short of those expected by the hierachy. These segments gave the show a fun narrative arc that had an amusing conclusion and a brilliant original song to boot.

This was a tech heavy production with lighting used to set the mood, multiple microphones to enable audience participation and many audio cues for Rankin to react to. His Techie was the straight man in this one man show and was clearly indispensible.

An amusing and informative show, it combined stand up with theatre in a seamless manner. Be prepared to shed your paranoia and laugh heartily.

Wake Up, Sheeple! is on at The Tuxedo Cat at 7.15 until September 20.

http://www.melbournefringe.com.au/fringe-festival/show/wake-up-sheeple/

Sonia Di Iorio : Brain Colours

By Noel Kelso

One of the revelations of the last couple of years of attending live comedy shows has been the quality of sketch comedy which is coming through on the scene. This allows the comedians to keep the laughs flowing in a series of bite-sized segments without the need for a continuous narrative or awkward gear-changes in topic which can sometimes arise in stand-up. Local talents such as Lords of Luxury, Wizards Sandwiches and the sketch Gods that are Jimmy James Eaton and Jason Geary have been joined by a fresh voice from the world of stand in the form of Sonia Di Iorio.

Sonia is perhaps more familiar to regular comedy attendees as a stand-up comedian – her previous show ‘Don’t Kiss The Weird Girl’ being an hour of stand-up based around her experiences of others perceptions of her in contrast to her own which entertained audiences at the last Fringe and Comedy festival. Here she tickles the funny bone with a different tactic inhabiting the lives of over twenty different characters each caught in their own bizarre, sometimes cringeworthy, situations.

Clearly an accomplished performer, Di Iorio has no qualms of allowing each scene to form from its own premise in a clear and concise manner such that the audience are instantly familiar with the scenario being presented so that there is the minimum of dead-air between sketches. Characters are believably sketched in just the first moments of appearing, their form and personalities clearly distinguishable from each other through the performer’s, often subtle, physical and vocal mannerisms.

Through the course of the show we meet the owner of a New Age herbal medicine shop who is really the victim of nominative determinism; learn how blokes form opinions of one another via their chosen nickname and eavesdrop on the readings being made by an honest psychic. There are some running gags also – such as a character who periodically appears and gets lost in the high-energy music to which they are listening or the person listening to tunes about the apocalypse – which have rather satisfying and very funny conclusions to them. One of the most memorable sketches involves very few words and is a testament to the comedian’s ability to communicate largely through body language as she procrastinates and becomes increasingly more distracted by a bag of crisps.

Sometimes sketch comedy can suffer from the need to transition from one scenario into the next, particularly if the show only has one performer but Di Iorio manages these transitions for the most part smoothly and delivers her lines clearly and distinctly so as to leave no confusion as to when we have begun a fresh scenario.

Overall this is a very funny show from a performer who seems to have found their calling and I look forward to seeing more sketch comedy from her in future.

Sonia Di Iorio – Brain Colours is on at the Imperial Hotel at 6pm until September 25th.
http://www.melbournefringe.com.au/fringe-festival/show/sonia-di-iorio-in-brain-colours/

Vikki Stone: Instrumental

By Ron Bingham

This is a change from Vikki’s show last year, as Vikki pays tribute to her dad. At the start, the audience sees a stage filled with a wide variety of musical instruments set up ready to play. Vikki enters and, in a very fast paced delivery, tells the story of her youth: falling in love with music and how much of an influence her dad had been. While speaking she is also using various instruments and technology to create a backing group to her stories. Some of the instruments Vikki can play very well, some have been borrowed and she has yet to master them yet she has an attachment to all of them. There are a couple of “proper” songs, including a lovely one to her father at the end.

One of the major scenes involves a story where Vikki was asked to sing backing vocals for a major artiste and what happened afterwards. In the audience was a(nother) reviewer who had been apparently having a Twitter battle with Vikki over the wearing of a dog costume (from last year’s show) as a bet, where she would receive an extra star if she donned the furry suit. Vikki turned the tables and forced him to wear it in the scene, to the riotous applause of the rest of the audience (it’s probably on t’internet as I write).

So if you want to see a very personal show about family and influences, which is also musically entertaining and funny, see this show. There is a little swearing but it will appeal to all ages.

Vikki Stone is performing Instrumental at Underbelly, Cowgate.
For Tickets and more information go to the Edinburgh Fringe Website:

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/vikki-stone-instrumental

Kitten Killers

By Ron Bingham

I’m not sure whether I should be encouraging people to come and see this show or I should be calling for some men in white coats to take them somewhere safe and secure. This mid-afternoon show is full of violence (possibly involving weapons and small fluffy (toy) animals) and sex (the final song was about as gross as one can be in the daytime) and a lot of hilarious sketches.

This is the Fringe debut of the team (Fran Bushe, Kat Cade, Kate Lennon & Perdita Stott) but one or two of the group looked familiar (though whether that is because I have seen them at Edinburgh before or bumped into them on London’s Underground I can’t say, as the website they promote after the show hasn’t been updated since it was created and has little biographical detail). If they are all newcomers to Edinburgh, then this is a very impressive debut show. I did see one lady walk out half way through (after a very violent sketch involving Royalty and wildlife) and a lot of the punchlines are groaners, but if you can take the subject matter without becoming queasy then you will have a great time.

The room is small and the stage is tiny, so with four performers and a lot of props who move about the stage during their sketches, I suggest that the front row should be renamed the danger zone. Tickets for this show will sell out fast, once the word gets around about how funny they are.

Kitten Killers are performing at Underbelly, Bristo Square.
For Tickets and more information go to the Edinburgh Fringe Website:

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/kitten-killers

The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show

By Ron Bingham

What a lovely start to the day. On the way in (and be warned that the audience is let in early), you are given tea/coffee, a croissant and fresh strawberries. The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show is referring to bite-sized comedic plays of around ten minutes each. The audience has the choice of three different “menu’s”  of six plays performed each day, although the day I went they had swapped one play due to time constraints. The flyer has the dates for each menu in case you wish to attend all three versions and, judging on the plays I witnessed, this is probably an excellent idea.

The following is a snapshot of some of the plays on offer. The day I attended was Menu One, with Mothra VS The Casting Director swapped for Intertwining Monologue.

Mothra VS The Casting Director is a very funny look at the problems faced when you have been typecast as a ravening giant moth whose only real hit was beating Godzilla.

I Thought I Liked Girls by Nicole Pandolfo, is a hilarious ‘coming out’ situation which has been twisted and bent until you’re not sure who fancies what anymore.

Violin by Jonathan Kravetz, is a solo piece which started with a startling premise and was performed well but seemed to peter out towards the end, leaving us with a bit of an anti-climax.

Bursting by Lisa Holdsworth, has a woman trapped in a locked department store with a strange man, it’s amazing what some people are prepared to confess. Some excellent writing and acting in this and I did sympathise with the fantasies they confessed to liking…..

Candy Likes Your Status by Matt Henderson, is a friendship dissected via Facebook, text and Twitter. One for the young people who understand all this new fangled so-called communication of the 21st century. It was very good but I spent much of the sketch trying to translate their LOLs and other acronyms into old person speak.

A Great War, a WWI sketch set in what would have been the Fox Newsroom if Rupert Murdoch had a time machine. Some brilliant jokes about the war, the battles, the military leaders and the attitudes of the time. You will probably miss a few of the jokes (unless you’ve been watching the History Channel) but the sketch as a whole was hilarious and heartbreakingly accurate.

One of the best ways to start a day at the Festival. And the strawberries were scrumptious.

The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show is on at Pleasance Dome.
For Tickets and more information go to the Edinburgh Fringe Website:

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/big-bite-size-breakfast-show

Miss Glory Pearl: The Naked Stand-Up

By Ron Bingham

OK, your host will be standing on stage naked from the start to the finish, but you will not be required to remove any clothing (although if it as hot as it was the night I was there, that could be a disappointment).

Miss Glory starts with a bit of her employment history (school teacher, burlesque dancer, stripper, advertising executive, but NOT a nudist) and, like all good ex-teachers, gives the audience a lovely, relaxed but well structured lecture about why she decided to perform her first Edinburgh show in this fashion, what the potential legal perils and penalties of not wearing clothes are (can anyone explain “decent exposure”?), and why her body is not as those depicted in magazines and advertisements are.

During the show, the audience is asked to participate in a discussion about their best and worst ‘bits’ and whether this defines what they are. The atmosphere is very relaxed and pleasant throughout the show and you will soon forget the lady talking to you is not wearing any clothes. This show is highly recommended if you are embarrassed by any of your “bits” or are curious as to whether it is possible to see a naked lady without ‘exploding in a ball of lustful desire’ (thanks, religion). It is also very funny in a laid back way (blimey, it’s hard to review a show about a naked lady without accidently slipping in a double entendre or two, isn’t it?).

Miss Glory Pearl is performing The Naked Stand-Up at Just the Tonic at The Caves.
For Tickets and more information go to the Edinburgh Fringe Website:

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/miss-glory-pearl-the-naked-stand-up