Tag: MICF 2014

Miss Itchy’s Late Night Larvae

By Elyce Phillips

Australia’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 ‘The Tonight Show’ 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 didn’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 show’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 Larvae’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 Gerda’s special helper Emoji. The special guest for the evening was Joel Creasey, who seemed just as baffled by the show as the audience. It’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 – 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 you’re prepared to take the misses with the hits, you’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 Country’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.  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 ‘IT Crowd’ 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 Australia’s geography. Southern’s analysis of Australia’s obsession with AFL cut to the core of our National psyche. Southern’s potted history of the colonial invasions of America then Australia was clever and concise.

I’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; I’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

James McCann – Nunopoly: How to Play Winning Monopoly and Live a Fulfilling Life in Christ

By Colin Flaherty

A Chinese girl rises to the top of a Mexican drug cartel, goes on to dominate the professional Monopoly championships and finds God. It’s a story you’ve probably heard a million times before but Sister James McCann tells us her version. Whether it delivers on the promised Monopoly coaching or liturgical discussions is up for debate.

This was wacky, shouty comedy at its best; a high energy performance with a hint of danger. It had the hallmarks of an Evangelical Salvation Show but the subject matter hinted at otherwise. Sister McCann flirted with gents in the audience, posed tricky Monopoly scenarios and even belted out some tunes on the Piano Accordion (the instrument of choice of Monopoly champions).

The story itself is one hell of a wild ride. McCann totally nails this self described picaresque tale. It ticks all the boxes of the genre and includes lashings of surrealism, highbrow cultural references and crazy encounters with thinly disguised celebrities. There were some clever call backs both visually, verbally and musically. A rendition of a well known song in mangled Spanish was a particular highlight.

The performance was rather rough around the edges with numerous distractions and fluffed lines but this fitted in perfectly with this odd character. With such a crazy logic behind the story, anything was likely to happen and frequently did. This show has had runs previously at the Adelaide Fringe but McCann still made it appear off the cuff.

Her interactions with the audience were a little hit and miss. Most prompts for suggestions were merely fishing for replies to match pre written comebacks but her rapport with the punters was a lot of fun.

If you enjoyed the zany, over the top characters and humour of Wolf Creek: The Musical (McCann co-wrote that masterpiece) you know what to expect. This is some great crazy fun to cap off your evening at the festival.

Nunopoly is on at Trades Hall – The Evatt Room until April 19
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/nunopoly-how-to-play-winning-monopoly-and-live-a-fulfilling-life-in-christ-james-mccann

Andy Matthews : String Theory

By Noel Kelso

Former RAW Comedy finalist Andy Matthews’ new show String Theory is silly. Very, very silly. It is also very, very clever. To explain how the two are connected you may need to be either very clever indeed or just open to the absurd ideas and stories Matthews puts together in this show. Possibly both, because those ideas are sometimes surreal, sometimes profound and often quite touching.

So – what is String Theory?

Well, it could be just a series of tall tales told on stage by a man with thick glasses and blonde hair, accompanied by a wandering live soundtrack provided by Mitchell Berk twiddling nobs from the side of the stage.

During the show the audience learns the innermost thoughts of Captain Flinders; hears how the loneliest man in the world fills his life; is made privy to how the capitalist economy was ultimately saved; hears a bush poem detailing the videogaming triumphs of an octogenarian farmer and peers into the decision-making process for selecting a new national anthem.

Are any of these things connected?

Possibly. It depends on your perspective and whether or not you can see in eleven dimensions – but that’s not important.

This is a show full of intelligent, surreal comedy which brims with ideas and which leaves the audience laughing and thinking.

Matthews delivers his material in deadpan fashion, rather like someone giving a rather plain lecture. This juxtaposition of the absurd with the mundane only serves to accentuate the humour in each of the tales. He is clearly very comfortable on stage, delivering his stories with a casual manner which makes it all the more easy for the audience to engage with the material and laugh along. This is very much a show which requires repeat viewing as Matthews has crammed so many ideas and subtle gags into his fifty minutes that afterward it may be difficult to remember every hilarious little aspect.

String Theory is on at ACMI – Games Room until April 6
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/string-theory-andy-matthews

Tom Lang : Love, Factually

By Colin Flaherty

Is love purely a chemical process? What animal has the largest testicles? If you want to find out, Tom Lang has put his day job as a Science Educator to perfect use in Love Factually, a comedic lecture exploring the science of love and sex, the birds and the bees and many other animals.

Though not a show of continuous rolling on the floor guffawing, it provided a good balance between education and jokes. Some of the examples presented were strange enough to provide their own laughs but when combined Lang’s own observational quips, he kept us smiling and regularly giggling. His lines were peppered with many Freudian slips; just how many were deliberate was debatable, but it added some welcome innuendo to the slightly clinical proceedings.

As Lang presented his spiel, PowerPoint slides were displayed on a screen above the stage. Images of the animals, often engaged in amusing and fascinating courtship rituals, gave visual emphasis to the weird and wonderful facts that were presented to us. The odd celebrity popped up where their appearance or behaviour mimicked that of the animal at hand to provide additional chuckles. His own “hand drawn” diagrams were cute and amusingly crude. Their use in illustrating the process of evolution and natural selection of various species was effective, often showing a rather graphic aftermath involving an obviously favourite reptile.

A raffle used to illustrate the utopian sex life of a species of primate was clear in its intent but the conclusion was a bit hazy. On the up side, an audience member will receive a treat with not much effort.

The show was broken up with an interval of sorts. A conservation video was screened about a certain microscopic creature of human nether regions that has been facing extinction over recent years. His expectation of it receiving huge laughs fell a little short, but it was certainly worth a gentle chuckle.

This was a fun hour in the company of a confident performer that is sure make you more knowledgeable at its conclusion. You certainly won’t look at the custom of giving flowers as a romantic gesture the same way again.

Love, Factually is on at The Duke of Wellington Hotel until April 7
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/love-factually-tom-lang

Edge!

By Lisa Clark

Edge begins as a female mirror to Lessons with Luis. Stella is the star in her family, jealous of anyone else getting a hint of limelight, Ashley is her silent suffering cousin who organises the props and other stage managing duties and occasionally gets to perform. Stella’s mother is in the US trying to get Stella TV work in the pilot season but she is ever present, attached to Stella via Bluetooth, guiding Stella through the performance and we only hear Stella’s side of the conversation.

The first half of the show is a fairly innocuous, entertaining character study of a precocious attention-seeking eleven year old with lots of build-up and sizzle as Stella presents her live show-reel for us. There is a sense that we might just be an imaginary audience watching a girl playing at being a star in her bedroom. The actual conceit of the Edge is that she is playing to a room full of entertainment industry heavies trying to re-invent her image from child internet sensation to a more mature almost-teen pop idol. I must admit that I found some of it slightly repetitive and annoying in the middle (as anyone being held captive by an irritatingly vivacious eleven year old would) but was confident that there was a reason that this show had won best comedy show at Melbourne Fringe last year and it turned out that everything was an all important set up for what was to come as the show gradually morphed into something much darker.

The humour becomes pitch black as Stella displays her Edge and the child star references go from Bindi Irwin and Rebecca Black to Nikki Webster, Britney Spiers and of course Miley Cyrus. Edge is not just about children in the media and the adults who exploit them but also about the sexualisation of children and the infantilism of women. Phew. The tone is perfect however and even when things feel like they are heading over the edge things never get out of hand and the audience’s potential unease is kept in check by the laughs and Stella’s wide-eyed naiveté.

Isabel Angus is remarkable as Stella with all the mannerisms, and expressions of an eager to please 11 year old trying to appear older than she is, but also with that underlying vulnerability that proves that she is still a child. At the same time you never forget during the show that Isabel the grown woman is playing the child which helps keep things comedic. We see less of Rachel Davis but she holds her own as the antithesis of Stella’s extraverted character, Ashley, exuding as much charisma as Isabel in her small but vital role. They’ve created an amazing, intelligent and entertaining piece of theatre and deserve an appreciative audience. It’s having a short run, so get to it!

Edge! is on at The Tuxedo Cat until April 8
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/edge