Jeff Green : All Guns Blazing!

By Sofia Monkiewicz

International comedians telling stories about their experiences with Melbourne can sometimes get a little tedious (cue jokes about the weather, the public transport system, Australian drivers and our roads, and Frankston and basically any outer suburb). Jeff Green mentions all of these classics in his new show All Guns Blazing but he manages to keep his insights fresh, entertaining, and not tiresome in the slightest.

Green became an Australian permanent resident several years ago and his Melbourne International Comedy Festival show focuses mainly on his adjustment to living in Melbourne with his wife and two children. While he does briefly poke fun at Frankston and complain rigorously about our famous bipolar weather, he also entertains with original tales of his experiences with Australian public toilets and with one of our greatest national treasures: Bunnings. It may be his classy suit and tie get-up, his English accent or perhaps just his personable nature, but Green is consistently and unwaveringly charming. From the detailed re-enactment of a performance he once did where a firework was lit while clenched tightly in his backside to a side-splitting description of his talented ability to perform poorly in the bedroom, even at his very crudest he still remains a gentleman.

It is easy to see that Green is a stand-up comedy veteran. He is incredibly comfortable on stage and does not hide behind his microphone. He speaks with his audience as though he is conversing with friends, telling us of his adventures and venting about his life. All Guns Blazing is essentially a series of humorous rants blended with charismatic sarcasm plus a hint of grumpy-old-man. Greenā€™s commentary on things like yoga, food intolerance and automatic doors are akin to that of every 50-year-old man who has kids and a yearning nostalgia for the good old days. He definitely appealed mostly to the older members of the audience but was also enjoyed by the younger crowd, possibly because he reminded them of their dads (this was certainly the case for me!). He also performs a rap about his cat which was funny largely because of its lame-factor and because, well, it was about his cat.

Throughout the show there were several opportune moments for Green to converse with and react to the crowd a little but he stuck strictly to his prepared material. His hour-long monologue is excellent, however it would have been even better if he had acknowledged the few times where audience members did something somewhat amusing.

Jeff Green encompasses all factors necessary to create a successful Festival show, including but not limited to: a strong stage presence, many amusing insights about the world we live in, and consistent, well-timed punchlines. He has been part of the comedy scene for a long time, and this is made very clear by hisĀ seamless performance. Charming, sarcastic and clever, All Guns Blazing is a ticket to guaranteed laughter.

All Guns Blazing! is at Melb Town Hall & Forum Theatre until April 14

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/all-guns-blazing-jeff-green

Max & Ivan : The Reunion

By Alanta Colley

Max and Ivan are the class of 2004, thrust mercilessly into the same room again after ten years of regrets, grudges and lost memories at their reunion. This critically acclaimed pair from the UK wowed audiences at last yearā€™s MICF, walking away with a Barry nomination as well as a Fosterā€™s Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination in 2013.

The audience furiously held on for dear life as we simultaneously encountered the class of 2004 in 2004 and 2014. The story spirals ever closer to the precarious edge of chaos as multiple characters become ever more entangled, undergo flash backs, confrontations, doubts, glories, and seek retribution. A cast of at least twenty exquisite characters are played by Max and Ivan, leaping erratically from one character to the next and back again. The encounters become ever more crazy and hilarious ’til two characters played by the same man enact a marriage proposal.

We meet the archetypes present in every school year; Brian ā€“ who is essentially allergic to life. We meet Jessica, his long-held and never confessed love. We meet the bully, the geography teacher, the canteen lady, and Jonathan Jones; the student who no one remembers, despite having leapt from the science block. Twice.

The duo combine the best of sketch, slapstick, songs and story telling at high speed and high volume. The writing is brilliant, packed full of twists, turns, and escaped zoo animals. The performance bounced off the back of the theatre. While sweat poured forth from the performers they never displayed the exhaustion they must have been feeling. It was exhausting just watching them. Some fantastically executed audience participation was also a highlight of the night.

Fun, furiously paced and fundamentally silly, thereā€™s few who wouldnā€™t love this performance. Already playing to packed rooms so get a ticket before thereā€™s none left.

The Reunion is on at the Melb Town Hall – Powder Room until April 20
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/the-reunion-max-ivan

Rama Nicholas : After Ever After

By Alanta Colley

Disney would have you believe that a story has a beginning, middle, and an end. But stories donā€™t really ever end, do they?

Rama Nicholas takes us on a twisted, treacherous and cheeky journey into the lives of Grimmā€™s characters after the wedding bells have fallen silent, after the romance has faded and after the baddies have done their time in the clink.

Nicholas reclaims the macabre and gruesome tone that so many of Grimmā€™s fairy tales have been stripped of under a sanitised Disney treatment. Under Nicholasā€™ mischievous re-imagining we learn of the darker side of some of the sweeter heroines. We hear what the seven dwarves got up to after Snow Whiteā€™s wedding day. We learn of tortured love affairs Disney never would have condoned. We learn of vengeance, of martial arts training, of addictions and many more vices unmentioned until now. All of this takes place in the appropriately-named city of Grimland.

Nicholas single-handedly delivers a packed cast of no less than fifteen well known fairy tale folk. The performance is a sophisticated feat of agility as she skilfully enacts a scene with up to eight characters all by herself. That she can leap from one character to the next in a split second without leaving the audience behind is a testament to Nicholasā€™ theatrical abilities. Each character is superbly developed; with rich accents and diverse physicalities and relatable motivations, enabling Nicholas to safely carry us into the realm of willing suspension of disbelief using a minimum of props or effects.

The performance is dotted with musical ditties; each number quite captivating. Nicholas displays being as musically talented as she is as a writer and performer. Sheā€™s also not afraid to take her characters to saucy encounters!

Nicholas is a divine physical story teller. Lose yourself in this rich, ridiculous and raucous piece of theatre. A delightful hour of enchanting and twisted tales to behold.

After Ever After is on at the Portland Hotel – Locker Room until April 20
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/after-ever-after-rama-nicholas

The Tim Vine Chat Show

By Jayden Edwards

Star of the UKā€™s The Sketch Show and international Pun-slinger, Tim Vine is back at the comedy festival with another round of rapid fire one liners, clever musical stings and visual gags.

In Timā€™s new show, he bundles his usual pun mastery with some conversational audience participation, inviting punters to fill out a questionnaire before the show then inviting those with the best stories to come up on stage. Hence the title The Tim Vine Chat Show.

The first half of the show is Tim at his best. ā€œThereā€™s no satire here, folksā€ Tim proclaims as he powers through his material. Tim fires off pun after pun scattered with some musical and visual stuff. Although we did miss out on his jump rope gag. ā€œThink iā€™ll skip that oneā€ he explained. His delivery is childlike and beautifully daggy, suiting his sometimes borderline daggy dad jokes, but the laughter always outweighs the groans. His suit and half untucked shirt only bolsters his style. Thereā€™s so much content here, and so much quality, you canā€™t lose really.

In the back end of the show the chat element comes into play and, unusually for a Vine show, the pace slows. For our performance Tim invites onto stage a Physiotherapist who told of an unfortunate encounter with a Sand Fly whilst overseas, a former childrenā€™s entertainer, a Radio DJ with a story of an awkward interview with a language barrier (ā€œA bit like this oneā€ he cheekily sugguested) and a incredibly secretive Transport Operations Manager.

Itā€™s always a risk to entrust a large chunk of your show to the quality of the stories of your audience and iā€™m sure with the right audience thereā€™s potential for some killer content here, but on this particular night iā€™m not sure it worked. Tim struggled a little bit to get material out of some of his guests, especially Jeanine the Transport Operations Manager, who just didnā€™t want to play the game. Tim fell back on some loosely related material to get himself out of a bind on a few occasions. Maybe some games or ā€œsegmentsā€ thrown in with the interviews would be more suited to his style?

Thereā€™s no question Tim Vine is a brilliant, witty scripted comic but his interviewing and improv just wasnā€™t as strong. Itā€™s a shame as it hampers an otherwise hilarious show. But such is the nature of improv; comedy gold could be hiding amongst your fellow crowd members. Timā€™s worth the punt.

The Tim Vine Chat Show is on at the Melb Town Hall – Lower Town Hall until April 20
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/the-tim-vine-chat-show

Miss Itchy’s Late Night Larvae

By Elyce Phillips

Australiaā€™s only identical twin teenage bridesmaids, Miss Itchy, have returned with their terrifically trashy and incredibly wrong talk show Late Night Larvae. Miss Gerda (Linda Haggar) and Miss Candy-Girl (Fahey Younger) bumble their way through a jam-packed evening of guests, prizes and aggressive incompetence.

Late Night Larvae feels like ā€˜The Tonight Showā€™ with a possessed autocue, hijacked by your maddest aunts. The show was very rough in parts – Gerda and Candy-Girl both had some trouble with the script, and Gerda was forgetful when it came to the location of characters on the stage, directing her lines to the voices backstage instead. But with these characters, it really didnā€™t matter. Every little slip-up just added to the wonderfully unhinged energy Miss Itchy bring to the stage.

Though the jokes have been updated for a new crowd, old favourites like Alphonse the Room Temperature Pony remain (He is still a pleasant 22 degrees). The showā€™s ad breaks, in the form of pre-recorded pieces, were the strongest part of the show. Ads for a Christmas club and a safari resort on the Peninsula were highlights, and the running gags about Matt Preston are brilliant. The prize wheel was also hilarious, with some truly underwhelming prizes awarded to lucky seat holders.

Late Night Larvaeā€™s supporting cast is very strong. Tim Harris brings a surprising amount of gravitas to the roles of Alphonse and newsreader Cliff Palate, both of which contrasted brilliantly with the constant fidgeting and belching of the Misses. Jennifer Wong was a stand-out as Sophie the Box Jellyfish and Miss Gerdaā€™s special helper Emoji. The special guest for the evening was Joel Creasey, who seemed just as baffled by the show as the audience. Itā€™s worth the price of entry just to see the spectacular interview format the girls have devised for their guests.

The humour prances around the line of good taste ā€“ some jokes hit the mark more than others. For me, a joke about the Apple factory in Shenzhen went too far. There is certainly some shock value in the show, but the stronger material was in their flirtations with the absurd, rather than the gross. Fortunately, there are enough laughs to be had that the occasional flat moment was never more than a flicker.

Late Night Larvae is not for the easily offended, but if youā€™re prepared to take the misses with the hits, youā€™ll have a great time. Miss Gerda and Miss Candy-Girl have produced a monstrosity of a talk show that could make a delightful end to your festival evening.

Miss Itchy’s Late Night Larvae is on at Melb Town Hall – Old Met Shop until April 19

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/late-night-larvae-miss-itchy-sn

Best of British

By Alanta Colley

The Best of British offers a veritable smorgasbord of British talent; touting the quirks and charms of the Mother Countryā€™s funny folk. This is a good place to get along to if you wish to find out what the British find funny about Australia.

The show offers a comedy taster for those wanting to sample comics before committing to a full hour with just one of them.Ā  Those in the line-up all have shows on elsewhere as part of the Comedy Festival.

While the line-up varies nightly, on this particular night we were graced with the comedy of Tom Binns of ā€˜IT Crowdā€™ Fame. Binns shared with us his persona of DJ Ivan Brackenbury; host to Hospital Radio FM, who performed hilariously inappropriate song dedications to a litany of patients in the hospital. He was uproariously entertaining.

Geoff Boyz represented Scotland on the night; with an eclectic array of observational humour and impersonations. The inherently affable Gordon Southern was a true highlight of the night; providing a particularly British interpretation of the character of Australiaā€™s geography. Southernā€™s analysis of Australiaā€™s obsession with AFL cut to the core of our National psyche. Southernā€™s potted history of the colonial invasions of America then Australia was clever and concise.

Iā€™m not sure how it was all coordinated, but the vast majority of the people in the audience were also British. While the show delivered an expected cocktail of jokes about being drunk, Post-colonial jibes about cricket, and bawdy one-liners about wives and women, it exceeded expectations.

The all-male nature of the line-up was a little boring; Iā€™m pretty sure the UK has lady comedians as well. Aside from this the night was a little like a kebab, solid, delicious, and pleasurable in its predictability. A worthy addition to your comedy consumption this festival.

Best of British is on at The Exford Hotel until April 20
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/best-of-british