The Lords of Luxury

By Elyce Phillips

4-piece sketch group Lords of Luxury successfully made the transition from podcasts to live performance last year.  Now they have honed their stage skills and give us this silly, weird and very shouty offering.

The Lords (Paul Verhoeven, Luke Ryan, Dan Debuf and Matt Saracini) attack their hour with infectious manic enthusiasm.  Their constant excitement floods the venue and you can’t help but get swept up in it. The atmosphere they create is fantastic. From the moment a snaggletoothed robot introduced the gents, the audience was on board. Sections involving audience participation were handled deftly. There was not a dull moment to be found.

The sketches are diverse and often absurd.  The Lords whip from the Titanic, to a film production office, to a magic show. The pace does not let up. Though all the sketches hit the mark, by far the highlight of the evening was the dramatic recreation of a sci-fi/action/romance/adventure story, written by Ryan when he was 14. Verhoeven’s turn as a wavy-haired, angular-featured alien beauty is quite possibly the funniest thing I’ve seen this month.

The Lords, though all great performers in their own right, are at their best as a team. They look like they’re genuinely having a great time messing around up on stage and it really adds to energy of the sketches. There’s just something so wonderful about seeing grown men in tuxedos being utterly ridiculous. It’s an absolute joy to watch these guys do their thing.

I highly recommend Lords of Luxury. The show is downright bizarre and tear-enducingly funny.  In what is proving to be an excellent year for sketch comedy, the Lords of Luxury are right up there with the best of them. It’s worth the price of admission to see the alien nightclub scene alone. Consider the rest a hilarious bonus.

Lords of Luxury is showing in the Bookroom at Trades Hall until April 20.

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2013/season/shows/lords-of-luxury

MICF Award Nominees Announced

There are seven Nomineed shows for The Barry Award this year.

Hannah Gadsby who is doing two shows – her personal show about surviving her teen years and becoming an adult – Happiness is a Bedside Table and her art show which this year is called Nakedly Nudes and is becoming a bit of a tradition and sells out pretty quickly.

John Conway – The New John Conway Tonight Show. An anarchic crazy late night chat show.

Kitty Flanagan, for Hello Kitty Flanagan. A stunning performer who came back to Australia from the UK a couple of years ago for which are all immensely grateful.

Max & Ivan Are Con Artists –  British performers who’ve been getting some good reviews. (I’ve clearly not seen them)

Michael Workman with another magical lyrical story Ave Lorretta.

Rich Hall he’s so fabulous his show doesn’t need a name. He kicked ass at Political Asylum’s Late Night Riot too.

Trevor Noah The Racist. He’s South African and have heard fabulous things about him.

 

Now for this year’s Nominees for The Golden Gibbo! (Named in honour of the late Melbourne comedian Lynda Gibson it is awarded to “a local, independent show that bucks trends and pursues the artist’s idea more strongly than it pursues any commercial lure”.)

Kate McLennan & Wes Snelling for their Moosehead awarded, site specific work Standard Double. A character  based show set in a hotel room that can only hold a small audience.

Simon Keck – Nob Happy Sock – For his moving and amazing show about depression with the most heart stopping opening of the festival

Slutmonster and Friends (Jessie Ngaio, Lucas Heil & Wes Gardner) – a gorgeously designed, joyful celebration of sex, silliness and puppets.

Tommy Bradson – Sweet Sixteen or the Birthday Party Massacre. Rock Musical satire of suburbia.

The Writers (Bob Franklin, Stephen Curry and Stephen Stagg) – What goes on in the mind of Bob Franklin?

 

The Best Newcomer nominees were announced on Tuesday April 16th they are….

Damien Power – Monkey’s in Space

Dayne Rathbone – It’s Me Dayne and The New Conway Tonight Show.

Luke McGregor – My Soulmate is Out of My League

and Steen Raskopoulos – Bruce SpringSTEEN LIVE IN CONCERT!


Congrats to all the 2013 Nominees, Winners will be announced next Saturday April 20th (well… actually early Sunday morning)  at the Comedy Festival Club Hifi Bar

The Wizard Sandwiches

By Elyce Phillips

The Wizard Sandwiches (Jerryd Clifford, Stuart Daulman, Andrew Belsten, Dylan Cole and Jake Ludwyke) are a local sketch comedy group and while they might be relatively new to the festival scene, the boys have put together a really accomplished and confident show. It is sketch comedy in its purest form – aside from a couple of running jokes dotted throughout proceedings, there is no overarching narrative, no message tying it all together. It is simply silliness presented in many different forms, and The Wizard Sandwiches do silliness very well.

The show is fast-paced and consistently funny. All five performers are equally strong, but it’s a diverse group of talent. Each of the Wizard Sandwiches crew brings a different energy, from the manic Charlie Day-esque Daulman to the mischievous gruffness of Ludowyke. As a team, their dynamic is fantastic. There is some great character acting in there as well. Between the five of them, with the assistance of a few props, they bring a much larger cast to life.

The sketches are twisted and delightfully absurd. The Wizard Sandwiches take you to the world of children’s netball, the Wild West and a whole lot in between. A running gag about ‘crab-thermometers’, with seemingly improvised lines involving characters telling of increasingly bizarre places where they’ve seen one before, was wonderful. Music is used to great effect, particularly in their show-stopper of an opening sketch and in some very funny callbacks to a WorkSafe ad.

The Wizard Sandwiches is inventive, playful and a whole lot of fun. This is one of the best examples of sketch comedy I’ve seen at this festival. Get in and see them now, because they’re sure to get bigger in the near future.

The Wizard Sandwiches is showing at the Old Council Chambers at Trades Hall until April 21.
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2013/season/shows/the-wizard-sandwiches

Josie Long – Romance and Adventure

By Elyce Phillips

It’s hard not to fall for Josie Long the minute you walk into the Supper Room at Town Hall. As the audience filed in, Long was already on-stage, establishing the “party vibe” for the evening. Alternating between dancing and chatting to the growing crowd, it was clear that she had won over her audience even before the show had even begun.

‘Romance and Adventure’ is the complete package – you get pre-show entertainment, post-show entertainment and an hour of hilarity in between. ‘The show contains both romance and adventure, though perhaps not in the forms you would expect. Long discusses recent upheaval in her life as she approached her 30th birthday. Leaving her long-term relationship and feeling out of place in the posh end of town, Long turned to lists and social justice to try and re-establish order.

Long is wonderfully charismatic and very relatable.  While she may be getting older and discussing more serious subject matter, she has not lost her youthful cheekiness. Her material is quick and clever, her delivery earnest and immensely likeable – as though you are having a one-way conversation with an overexcited friend.

Long’s newfound enthusiasm for (and then weariness of) social justice makes for great material. She perfectly expresses the frustrations of living under an ideology you disagree with and the feeling of powerlessness that comes with it. Her impression of the UK’s conservative government is made all the funnier by the presence of her real passion behind the joke. Social justice could be a tough topic for comedy, but Long strikes a good balance. Though the show is deeply political in parts, you never feel like you are being preached to.

‘Romance and Adventure’ is truly wonderful and well worth checking out.  It’s guaranteed to have you  walk out still chuckling,

Josie Long – Romance and Adventure is showing in the Supper Room at Town Hall until April 21
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2013/season/shows/romance-and-adventure-josie-long

Late Night Letters and Numbers.

By Lisa Clark This is a fun nerdy little comedy quiz show that is based upon the stupidly axed Letters and Numbers which was based on the UK show Countdown, but not called Countdown for very obvious reasons. Before that there was a French show called  Des Chiffres et Des Lettres, but you didn’t need to know that. The best way to see it on TV is being sent up in a stunning episode of The IT Crowd. called The Final Countdown.

The basic idea is; two contestants compete in various rounds, in this case they are guest comedians. The Letters round is like boggle where the contestants try to make the longest words out of 9 random letters. In the numbers round a random target number under 1000 is given by an audience member, then 6 random numbers are drawn and the contestants must use these to somehow reach the target number using mathematics. The final round is the Conundrum which is an anagram that the contestants must be the first to unscramble. Where it differentiates itself from the TV shows is that it is live, it is comedy and it is late at night.

The late night comedy atmosphere means that although they take the game seriously to a point, there is a lot of silliness, veering off topic and naughty language. They are also fairly encouraging of audience participation and will award points to impressive audience members. You could hear a lot of audience members around you guessing at words or getting the maths perfect, but not everyone was brave enough to pipe up when invited to do so. It can be pretty hard not to participate in this infectious show.

The night we were there guest comedians Karin Danger – nee Muiznieks (Hot Box) and Yianni (Numb & Number) made admirable adversaries while up the other end of the desk the Watson (Once Were Planets) duo played comedy relief with Adam McKenzie and Tegan Higginbotham as moderators in charge of the giant dictionary. Ben McKenzie (Splendid Chaps) makes a fair go at being Lily Serna, letter displayer/ maths genius but for reasons I can’t put my finger on, cannot quite capture her demure allure. The host, in great contrast to the cheerful and rather straightlaced Richard Morecroft, is the famously cynical & comically grumpy Nick Caddaye who does a great job of keeping it all rolling and not running too late.

Late night Letters and Numbers is a fun way to finish a full Friday night of comedy. Also keep your eye out for further Letters and Numbers nights happening outside of the festival at Trades Hall throughout the year.

Late Night Letters and Numbers is only on Friday nights of the Festival at Trades Hall in the Old Council Chambers
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2013/season/shows/late-night-letters-and-numbers

Yianni – Numb & Number

Since relocating several years ago, Yianni has been kicking goals in the UK comedy scene. At last years Edinburgh Fringe he presented the show Numb & Number which had a hilarious YouTube promo video:

Yianni is currently in Melbourne & has been popping up as a guest on various MICF shows. While here Yianni will be treating us to a one off performance of his fabulous solo show about being diagnosed as mildly autistic at 33 years of age. We saw it in Edinburgh and can thoroughly recommend it.  

Numb & Number will be on this coming Monday 15th of April at Ding Dong Lounge (18 Market Lane, Melbourne).

The show starts at 8pm and tickets are $25 full / $20 concession (available at the door).