Tag: Daniel Connell

Squirrels Top 5 Picks of the Festival

Well the 2013 Melbourne International Comedy Festival is winding down this weekend.

We no longer hand out awards, because it is just too difficult for us to see everything, or even see the same shows as each other. Instead most of the Squirrels have picked their Top 5 shows. If they are still running we recommend that you might like to see some of them this weekend. It was really hard to narrow it down to only five.

Of course the festival isn’t over yet and we may see something that changes our list but we wanted to put this up before the festival was over so you could gain from our recommendations.

You’ll notice a few of the names crop up more than once. Some sold out shows are putting on extra performances in the final weekend like the play Choir Girl that had finished its run of three performances, but has added one on Sunday afternoon.

Check out the Melbourne International Comedy Festival website for details and keep festivalling ’til you drop!!

Lisa Clark 

Hannah Gadsby – Happiness is a Bedside Table

Dave Bloustien – The Grand Gignol

The Writers

Luke McGregor – My Soulmate is Out of My League

Sammy J – Potentially

 

Caitlin Crowley

Luke McGregor – My Soulmate is Out of My League

Hannah Gadsby – Happiness is a Bedside Table

Michael Workman – Ave Loretta

Best Comics Worst Gigs

Dave O’Neil – 33 Things I Should Have Said No To

 

 

Cathy Culliver 

Dayne Rathbone – It’s Me Dayne

Luke McGregor – My Soulmate is Out of My League

Simon Keck – Nob Happy Sock

Dr Professor Neal Portenza

Ryan Coffey – Late & Loud

 

Colin Flaherty 

Fabian Lapham & The Actual Musicans:God Fights the Dinosaurs & 9 Other Stories That Will Awesome You in the Face.

Simon Keck – Nob Happy Sock

Set List

Choir Girl – Sarah Collins

David Quirk – Shaking Hands with danger

 

Elyce Phillips 

Lessons with Luis – Famoucity!

Lords of Luxury

Sam Simmons – Shitty Trivia

Lawrence Leung’s Part-time Detective Agency

Mike Birbiglia – My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend

 

Luke Simmons 

Khaled Khalafalla – Devious

Brendon Walsh

Bev Killick – Goes “There”…Again

Daniel Connell – Mr Personality 1988

Trevor Noah – The Racist

 

2013 Melbourne International Comedy Festival finishes on Sunday 21st of April

Daniel Connell – MR PERSONALITY 1988

By Lisa Clark

Daniel Connell is a laid back country boy with a delivery that reminded me of Dave Quirk minus any hint of darkness. He’s a personable personality to spend an hour with but as perplexed as anyone why he won a personality contest when he was five.

The first ten minutes of Daniel Connell’s show about travelling on public transport is completely dispensable and had me a bit worried. The one consolation was that those who arrived late didn’t miss anything important. When he did finally don his winning sash, he admitted that he didn’t remember anything about the win, which had me worrying again. This wasn’t going to be one of these festival shows that lures you in with an interesting premise that it then fails to address was it?

Thankfully Daniel was setting himself a quest and gradually, he pieces together the mysteries of that day and how he ended up in possession of a sash and white ceramic owl. Daniel paints a warm and amusing picture of his family in Batemans Bay with its Bowling Club, Rotary Club and Neptune Festival which hosted the Mr Personality contest in 1988, that he somehow won. He has tales of his mean older sisters, two wacky mates and parents with senses of humour as dry as his own. This is the backbone of the show and the most successful part.

He goes off on some tangents which are cleverly woven in. It doesn’t really matter that they’ve been shoved in, because his material about the ‘animals fighting in the wild’ website is clearly gold. Unfortunately the disappointing ending feels false and forced and despite some laughs doesn’t fit with the show we’ve just enjoyed and leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth.

Daniel’s style is often deadpan with a quick twinkle in the eye that stops it becoming too monotone. He has just the right amount of props and family photos to support his stand up and it’s not a bad way to spend an hour. With only a few cuts and tweaks there are the makings of a top notch festival show here.

Daniel Connell is performing at The Forum Theatre in the Carpet Room.
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2013/season/shows/mr-personality-1988-daniel-connell

Commedia Dell Parte

by Luke Simmons

Commedia Dell Parte may well be one of Melbourne’s best kept secrets. It’s got a reputation for holding a great “underground” night where new and high profile comedians can test their new and existing material. To the good fortune of everyone in the packed house, many of the performing comics provided samples of their upcoming Melbourne International Comedy Festival shows.

The night was MC’d by Sean Ryan (co-runner of the night) who commands attention on the stage with his Ned Kelly / ZZ Top style facial hair and comedic style of storytelling. He’s great at giving examples about how not to win friends and influence people – in a wide variety of settings. To his credit, not all examples feature him as the villain. He maintained the pace of the night well and kept the audience grinning throughout.

After Sean’s intro, the first act was Lijretta who is a unique comedian who hails from Ambassell, Ethiopia. With his sunglasses planted firmly on the top of head, he got the audience laughing straight away with a series of punchy observational one-liners. The highlight of his set came when he took everyone through an odd situation on the tram which involved two good Samaritans almost coming to fisticuffs. His show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival is called The Lijretta Show.

Jay Morrissey stormed onto the stage and showed everyone how his thousands (not millions) of miles an hour style helped him win the Victorian final of the RAW competition. Whether he was talking about mind-altering experiences at work or how females find it easier to garner support on Facebook, he generally had the audience in stitches. Check out his #bollard show at the current festival.

Xanda Allen then came on looking like he’d come straight from a Whitesnake concert. Purely based on his look, he demanded attention on the mic and used his visual gags to extreme effect. In fact, if he grows tired of comedy, he could do well on the catwalk. Melbourne needs to see more of this guy because he has the X factor.

Dean Eizenberg’s quirky style provided an interesting change of pace for the night. He also used the intimate stage to full effect for his visual gags – mixed in with his stand-up of course. If comics are going to use some edgy material (see: bad taste gags), they need to be able to come back with a strong punch. Based on the crowd reaction, Eizenberg’s sucker punch almost hit the mark. His unconventional style of stand-up was a gas though.

Ronny Chieng hit the stage and unleashed a volley of jokes towards the audience for the length of his short set. For some of his material, he loves to use his ancestral roots as both a source of boasting and piss taking. After all, we are currently in the “Asian Century”. He’s clearly got a keen observational wit and an acidic tongue to match. He took exception to poor old (or, young) bar tender who had the audacity to capture his attention which was a highlight. His show at the current festival is “Can you do this? No you can’t” and would be well worth it.

Steele Saunders then took the mic and immediately took control of the crowd. In fact, this man oozes stage presence and doesn’t mind taking a risk with a bit of banter with the audience. His power set was a mixture of short gags and extended stories – which both went down well. Don’t make a fool of yourself in a nightclub when Steele’s there because karma may make you pay… His show at the festival is The Steele Saunders’ Venue Got Demolished Late Night Show.

Daniel Connell is a rising star and this stunning set proved why. His voice has the calming effect akin to a doctor which helped him connect with the audience. On this particular night, Connell took the audience on a journey of piss-funny storytelling with the highlight being his tumultuous (and sumptuous) upbringing. In fact, he made most in the audience lose their appetite based on the groans… See his Mr Personality 1988 show at the festival!

The night ended with Luke Heggie whose dry style of joke telling makes Dave Hughes sound like a giggling Rodney Dangerfield. He peeled off joke after joke and whipped the audience into a wee-in-the-pants frenzy. What a way to end the night. He obviously dislikes people with jet skis, sneaky strippers and would rather drink paint that head to the horse races and/or greyhounds. Unsurprisingly, his upcoming show at the festival is called Mega Dry. Check this man out!
Following Radiohead’s lead, the night is run on a pay-as-you-like basis with most being happy to part with a fiver or a tenner on the way out. If you’re ever around the St Kilda area and have a free Thursday night, Commedia Dell Parte is a perfect place to hear some short and punchy sets from a wide selection of comedians.

Commedia Dell Parte is at George Lane Bar every Thursday night thoughout the year.

Five good reasons to see Cal Wilson Is Guilty, Saturn Returns and Daniel Connell – Mr Personality 1988

5 good reasons to see Cal Wilson Is Guilty

1. I have it on good authority Bradley Cooper/Scarlett Johannson/Justin Bieber/Chewbacca are coming to the show. I don’t know which night. You’ll have to come lots.

2. I know where you live. If you don’t come, I’ll hang around your house doing impressions of Chewbacca singing Justin Bieber songs.

3. I reveal lots of true stories, stripping away secrets, peeling off guilts. It’s like burlesque of the mouth.

4. There could a be surprise guest on stage with me. When I say “guest,” I mean “moth.”

5. I admit to the worst things I’ve ever done. Apart from stealing that roman artefact. No one knows about that. Oh.

Cal Wilson Is Guilty at the Melb Town Hall – Powder Room

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2013/season/shows/guilty-cal-wilson-is

 

5 Good Reasons to See Lachlan MacLeod and Simon Abrahams in Saturn Returns

One. It’s funny. Which is a good start for the comedy festival. It’s fun for you because we laugh at at our real life traumas. Which is not that much fun for us. For us, every night brings another therapy bill. We’re laughing on the outside but crying on the inside. But for you, it’s funny. No therapy bills. Perhaps a dry cleaning bill.

Two. It’s got music. 12 original songs that poke fun at everything from Uranus to grey pubic hair, Matt Preston to golden Gaytimes. There’s electro synth, piano ballads, ukelele ditties and rollicking dance numbers. There’s even a CD you can buy at the end. And if that’s not enough for you, we wear fancy silver suits. FANCY SILVER SUITS, I SAY.

Three. It’s good. And not just cos we say so. There’s this fancy four star review (http://au.artshub.com/au/news-article/reviews/performing-arts/saturn-returns-190291?sc=1), plus a whole lot of people who saw our sold out 2012 season who will say so. And Tripod – who we recently toured with – they’ll say so too. Won’t you guys? Eh, Tripod? Gatesy? Yon? The other one? Remember us… from the tour, you know… Ummm *sigh*. Plus TheatrePress.com.au said Lachlan was “everyday funny like Hamish and Andy, writes clever and witty lyrics like Tim Minchin, and delivers them with the pathos of Tripod.”. So at least one of us is funny. And the other is a bit funny looking…

Four. It’s deep. Like… yeah. It’s a show with heart. You’ll come out laughing and humming catchy tunes but maybe – just maybe – you’ll even come out having been moved a teensy tiny bit. Unless you’re a heartless bastard, in which case, I totally empathise.

Five. This show is about crisis. It’s poking fun at the traumas of turning 30. We’re really pretty stressed as it is. Have some heart. Even the aforementioned heartless bastards. See our show. We’re already getting old, going grey, going bald and getting fat. Don’t send us broke too.

Saturn Returns is on from  27 March to 6 April at The Butterfly Club.

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2013/season/shows/saturn-returns-simon-abrahams-lachlan-macleod-in

 

5 Good Reasons to see Daniel Connell – Mr Personality 1988
1. The show features a ceramic owl.

2. Daniel won a Mr Personality contest aged 5, he has a sash to prove it. Last year he asked questions about what happened on that day in 1988, he regretted this.

3. Martin Riggs is an L.A. cop with suicidal tendencies and Roger Murtaugh is the unlucky police officer with whom Riggs is assigned. Together they uncover a huge drug-smuggling operation, and as their success rate grows so does their friendship. (This will make sense if you see this show)

4. It’s at 8:30 every night (except Sunday 7:30pm), I know that’s the time most good TV shows or movies start but you can record those and watch them later. Come and see this live (please don’t record it). (unless you have a sweet camera and good sound and can give me a copy).

5. There might be some singing and dancing in this show, there might not be……

Daniel Connell – Mr Personality 1988 is on at the Forum Theatre in the Carpet Room throughout the Festival

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2013/season/shows/mr-personality-1988-daniel-connell

Daniel Connell – Likeable Enough

By Annette Slattery,

“You can tell your friends that you saw me before I was famous” Daniel Connell told the audience as he hit the stage in his debut festival show Likeable Enough. Unfortunately, recycling tired old gags like this will not be enough to shoot Connell to fame.

However ninety percent of Connell’s was the same clichéd material, the kind of jokes that other comedians go to when they want to parody the archetypal hack comedian. The pull back and reveal has never been so heartily overused and abused as it was in this show. This is a technique that only works when it’s tight and has the element of surprise. These setups had holes so big you could drive a truck through them. The premise for much of his material was unoriginal and weak in the first place and then they were overworked. These stones were bloodless already, without Connell trying to squeeze a few more drops.

For example, the Glen Iris swimming pool was named after drowned Prime Minster Harold Holt in 1969 and I’m pretty sure comedians have been pointing out the irony ever since – it’s certainly as long as I can remember and I was born in 1972. It may have been funny the first time but after forty three years this observation is really losing its bite. So you understand why my heart sank as soon as Connell started talking about a pool near his place…you can guess the rest. What’s more Connell extrapolated it out into a scene whose only purpose seemed to be to house some glaringly predictable call-backs.

There is some light at the end of the tunnel however. Some of the material that Connell produced about his childhood, such as trying to hoodwink the tooth fairy, was amusing and enlightening. And some of the apocryphal things he was told as a child which he believed showed promise as the basis of good material. He also had a couple of slightly absurd imaginings involving animals which also packed real promise.

Connell seems like a nice young guy and he did get the title of the show right at least; Daniel Connell is likeable enough. However this is a show which would struggle to pass muster at Melbourne Fringe, let alone at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Maybe if Connell lost the generic material and concentrated on developing some of his more original ideas he might be more than “likeable”.

Daniel Connell – Likeable Enough is on at Arthurs Bar on Flinders Lane

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2012/season/shows/likeable-enough-daniel-connell/