Sarah Kendall : Touchdown

By Caitlin Crowley

Sarah Kendall kicks off Touchdown with a massive call all the way back to her previous show when she wrapped up with a story of being caught calling her teacher the King of Cxxts. She only reprises the joke because after her last show her mum called her on its authenticity, “That’s not what really happened is it dear?” So Kendall is here to set the record straight and as a result takes us on a warts-and-all coming-of-age story about her teenage years in Newcastle.

Touchdown is as well-crafted and satisfying as a 90s teen movie. It’s the tale of the awkward underdog, the prettiest girl in school, a daggy librarian and yearning for love with the perfect boy. The journey is hilarious, moving and unexpected. There are bucket loads of evocative 90s references from Policy Academy to Jaws 4, bad hairstyles and Neil Diamond concert t-shirts.

This is more than an hour of stand-up though, this is story-telling at its finest. Kendall manages to be both bitingly sharp and incredibly warm as she takes us through that time in life when you learn that you can spend your whole life with people but not know anyone at all. The show shifts smoothly from a self-deprecating cack to a tender tale of realising that not everything is as it seems.

Touchdown is a rewarding hour of comedy and Kendall is a master at tying up loose ends. At the end I wanted to see read the book and see the film. I loved it.

Touchdown is on at Melb Town Hall – Old Met Shop until April 20
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/touchdown-sarah-kendall

Oliver Clark’s Comeback Special

By Alanta Colley

Sporting an electric blue velvet 2 piece suit, a debonair smile, matching cufflinks and more than one copy of his recently released album ‘Warming up the pipes’ Clark delivers us a dash of piping hot Las Vegas smarm. Er, charm.

Clark’s act evokes the laughter of awkwardness as he pauses after each gag to reflect on his humour with a chuckle to himself. The man’s face is a theme park of expressions; he could sign for his own show just using his eyebrows. Clark will show you how to double take a double take. More than once.

Clark pushes stereotypes of the great crooners such as Tom Jones and Elvis to new and uncomfortable levels; burying us in another era, as he sets the mood of each song with his disco ball and cheeky one liners. You’ll be inculcated in a world of cocktail parties, holidays to Acapulco, long lost romances and sweet love ballads. Perhaps more than a little self-assured of just how much charisma he is packing Clark tiptoes the line indelicately between charming and downright creepy. The result evokes no few squawks of laughter from the audience.

In this show Clark also employs a baguette in a manner you’ve not seen before, and in all likeliness will not will see again. Clark’s sweet-talking a sandwich routine was disturbingly erotic. Or erotically disturbing.

Clark’s rather exquisite guitar chops emerge half way through the performance. When he really lets loose in song it is a truly pleasurable experience, I forgot to feel uncomfortable for a good five minutes or so.

This isn’t a show for the shy audience member; you may very well receive a full frontal assault of Clark’s particular brand of charm. Things can get uncomfortably intimate. The doors may be locked during the performance. You’ve been warned. Characterful comedy with class and charisma on the rocks.

Oliver Clark’s Comeback Special is on at Portland Hotel – Locker Room until April 19
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/comeback-special-oliver-clark

Sara Pascoe vs The Truth

By Lisa Clark

 

Sara Pascoe is strange. It took a while for me to warm to her, especially after she opens with a convict joke but it’s a set up for later on when she admits ‘I like to say something at the beginning that means I have to win the audience back’. It worked and she proved to be an intelligent, fascinating and slightly unhinged performer who was fun to spend an hour with.

There are lots of weird aspects to Sara Pascoe vs The Truth, I always worry about comedians when they brag about drinking too much, she also goes through some irrational fears, and worrying paranoia. I enjoyed a rant against hairdressers that led to her having to cut her own hair and her horror gig story garnered a lot of sympathy from the audience.

The topics Sara covers are a bit all over the place but the audience can’t miss the major theme for this show. It’s written on the Tshirt Sara had especially printed and is wearing; “There are no facts, only interpretations.” – Friedrich Nietzsche. She repeats this throughout the show and it often makes a good punchline. There are actually a lot of surprisingly intellectual moments throughout the show. She also becomes gradually more political, but never hits you over the head with her ideas.

Sara Pascoe is clearly very experienced at stand up from the UK and keeps the audience laughing throughout. She is more of a joke teller than a story teller in that the stories feel like they are there for the jokes rather than because she wants to share a tale with us and there is no overarching tale as such. That’s not to say that there isn’t some form of structure, with her repeated quote reminding audiences to ask where the truth lay in her words.

It’s hard to know if the drunken, rude, paranoid side of Sara is a character she puts on for the audience or not. That’s a more acceptable type of comedian than a brilliant, erudite, feminist, philosopher, perhaps. Sara Pascoe vs The Truth is definitely a show I would recommend to audiences with open minds who enjoy something a bit skewed. Certainly one to take your friends to who like something smart and different.

 

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/vs-the-truth-sara-pascoe

Geraldine Quinn – MDMA: Modern Day Maiden Aunt

By Elyce Phillips

Geraldine Quinn is the black sheep of her family. While she is currently unemployed and unattached, pursuing her career in the arts, her siblings have all paired off and produced children. This makes Quinn the cool older aunty to 19 nieces and nephews. Nineteen. In MDMA: Modern Day Maiden Aunt, Quinn relates her struggle to be seen in a society where ‘older’ women are invisible, be there for this horde and perhaps most importantly, educate them about David Bowie.

Quinn’s voice is absolutely stunning. There’s not a dud among the songs she has composed for this show. The lyrics are sharp-witted, even when they’re spelling out curse words. The melodies are catchy enough to hang around in your head well after the show is done. There may not be many out there who have families as big as Quinn’s, but this doesn’t make her material any less relatable. A song about distant acquaintances banging on about their babies on Facebook could have been written about anyone’s feed, I’m sure.

As a production, MDMA hits all the right notes. Quinn’s costume, made by Sam Bolton, is perfect – its over-the-top theatre glamour contrasts so beautifully with Quinn’s drunken staggering and Ziggy Stardust-eqsue eye make-up. Justin Hamilton has done a fabulous job of directing. The lighting and sound do just what they need to to enhance Quinn’s performance, whether it’s stadium-style rock opera flashiness, or a deft touch that takes a song about invisibility to an entirely different level.

MDMA: Modern Day Maiden Aunt is an uproariously cynical portrayal of singledom and a loving ode to Quinn’s nieces and nephews – even if they’re too young to see it. Quinn is both powerful and vulnerable, scathing and sweet. If you’ve ever been asked when you’re going to get a proper job or settle down and have kids, you have to go see this.

MDMA: Modern Day Maiden Aunt is on at Melb Town Hall – Lunch Room until April 20
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/mdma-modern-day-maiden-aunt-geraldine-quinn

The First Five

By Noel Kelso

Have you ever watched a stand-up comedian perform and thought to yourself afterwards, ‘I could do better than that’?

Well now is your chance to give it a try. The First Five is a comedy workshop for those wanting to learn the art of the stand-up. Hosted by Melbourne comedian Lauren Bok this is an hour during which participants are shown mike technique, the building blocks of a joke, how to turn a mundane situation into something absurd and how to think like a comedian.

Oh – and if you attend you must perform.

To begin each member of the group is asked to stand and tell the others their name, what they ate for breakfast, something which they dislike and something which they like. Then they have to repeat that on stage from behind a microphone. This exercise is a great ice-breaker and helps to get everyone relaxed with one another and comfortable with the stage.

We are then given advice on stage presence, delivery and how to relax. One of the key factors mentioned is economy of speech; particularly relevant to myself as I can ramble on a bit as may be obvious from my reviews.

Next is the joke development section where we were asked to select pieces of paper from four buckets containing different topics, feelings, questions or phrases with blank spaces to be filled. These formed the seeds of our acts and we wrote ideas down, discussing them in small groups before performing.

I should point-out at this stage that my wife had accompanied me under the impression that she would simply be observing. So to discover that she too was expected to perform was a bit of a surprise.

But we both performed and managed to get some laughs from those in the room. This is where the great potential for this workshop lies – in encouraging not only those who wish to enter stand-up, but those whose professions might involve presentations at meetings or conferences. This is the sort of workshop which encourages participants to develop ideas outside of the normal parameters and would be invaluable to someone in a dry profession who has to attend conferences and speak.

Lauren Bok makes a fine mentor and is always on hand to offer advice throughout. The workshop itself works best with small numbers as the time is limited and there is a lot to get through, but I highly recommend it to anyone wishing to hone their stand-up skills

The First Five is on at the Imperial Hotel until April 12
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/the-first-five