Kitty Flanagan Hello Kitty

By Luke Simmons

Complete with a silver lining backdrop, Kitty Flanagan walked out to rapturous applause from the packed and mostly-female crowd.  And rather than soak it in, she got straight down to business. The Hello Kitty show was a perfect platform for Flanagan to both vent and lament about life in general. In short, she nailed it.

She started by taking aim at the cabaret and burlesque “movement” with them being framed as second rate competitors to the live comedy scene. She made her point crystal clear and shared a number of hilarious personal experiences as both an MC and as a bored audience member. The story regarding the balloon-clad dancer who mistimed the application of her costume drew some of the biggest and loudest laughs on the night.

Flanagan gradually made her way to the key part of the show which has her explaining the dilemmas surrounding bringing a cat into her life. Who said there’s anything weird about 40 year old unmarried women with cats… Kitty does! During this part of the show, she demonstrated that she’s a clever comedian who knows how to milk a joke for all its worth.

Things turned contemporary as she then wove through a piss-taking tirade against lovey-dovey couples, babies, plane rides and today’s misguided youth. Her contention that rap used to be clean and wholesome is somewhat questionable (2 Live Crew were raw in the 80’s!). However, it didn’t get picked up by the smiling crowd.

To close the hour, her sister (Penny Flanagan) came on stage with her guitar and they took the audience through two expertly performed songs. If the year was 2000, she could easily have a hit on her hands with her tribute to noisy imbeciles. As for the song about religion, it was funny and (naughtily) offensive in equal measures!

It was a definite 9/10 performance from a seasoned pro who knows how to command control over the crowd. In terms of the subject content, she had men laughing and women crying throughout. Highly recommended for all!

Kitty Flanagan at the Athenaeum Theatre
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2013/season/shows/hello-kitty-flanagan-kitty-flanagan

Don’t Peak at High School

By Caitlin Crowley

In 2012 Fiona Scott-Norman edited a collection of stories from well-known Australians about their experiences at school, Don’t Peak at High School from Bullied to A-List. It’s not only a noble idea but a wonderful read and for this year’s festival Scott-Norman has curated a show around the same theme.

Hares and Hyenas bookshop in Fitzroy has been converted to a smart little venue for the festival season and with comfy chairs, a well stocked bar and charming service one can only hope it becomes a permanent spot for live comedy and theatre.

There’s a rotating cast of comics enrolled in the Don’t Peak class of 2013. Opening night featured a mixed bag of tricks with clear highlights from the ever reliable Nelly Thomas and the wonderful Stella Young. Thomas talked about both being bullied and being the bully and performed a killer rap about a about the chicken Hawaiian pack.  Young touched on political madness gone wrong and on her own experiences at the hands of the “mean girls” from high school. It’s a rare talent who can deliver humour and pathos in such a brief set but Young absolutely nailed it, I was moved from laugh out loud to sucking back the tears in about ten minutes. Imaan Hadchiti delivered a solid performance with some good physical comedy.

When you have four performers to move through in an hour the role of the MC is super important. Unfortunately the MC for the evening, Jacq Tamlyn, was not up to the task on this occasion. Tamlyn’s upbringing and background appear to be packed full of rich material (crazy family, gender identity issues, high school tantrums) but Tamlyn has not been able to craft that material into a successful routine. This show needed an MC to maintain the momentum and move things along quickly but Tamlyn felt the need to perform material in between each act, stretching the show out unnecessarily and forcing it to go over time by 45 minutes. As the final performer, Scott-Norman didn’t stand a chance. Maybe she was concerned with the show running overtime or perhaps she wasn’t on form but her material about her experiences as a lonely teen at boarding school should have packed a lot more punch and the delivery was flat.

I took along a real-life High Schooler (the only one in the audience) and she really enjoyed it. There was a bit of colourful language and some adult themes but nothing she couldn’t handle and the performers interacted with her really warmly. With issues focused squarely on the vulnerable teen years and with a real lack of shows aimed squarely at that market it seemed like a missed opportunity not to promote this as a show for the oft-neglected 13-16 market.

This is a great idea for a show with some talented folk on board; unfortunately based on the performance I saw I can only grade it “Needs improvement.”

Political Asylum – Late Night Riot

By Elice Phillips

Political Asylum is a monthly line-up of great local political comedians. During the Melbourne International Comedy Festival they take up residence in Town Hall for one night only in their annual Late Night Riot.

The late night show played to a packed auditorium and it wasn’t hard to see why. Every single performer on the line-up was fantastic. Political Asylum regulars Aamer Rahman, Stella Young, Toby Halligan, Scott Abbot and John Brooks were all hilarious, covering topics from Abbott and Gillard to compulsory horse-riding classes for the disabled. Mathew Kenneally was an absolute standout among the regular crew. He’s quick-witted, his material is incredibly strong and he did a great job of hosting the show.

Nelly Thomas and Damien Callinan were special guests for the evening. Thomas amused with tales of remaining diplomatic while hosting talkback on Radio National. Callinan brought a touch of theatre to the proceedings, performing a meeting of the Horsham branch of Amnesty International. His characters were spot-on and painfully funny – his portrayal of a truly woeful ‘green poet’ was my highlight of the night.

The extra special surprise guest for the evening was the wonderful Rich Hall. His material wasn’t quite as politically-minded, but the audience absolutely loved him, cheering for him to stay on after his red ‘get off the stage’ light came on. Hall’s droll observations of Australia had people in stitches. His comparison of our coalition government to the store that does shoe repair and key cutting was particularly funny for its strange accuracy.

If Late Night Riot is any indication of the quality of the regular show in Brunswick, it deserves a packed house every month. These guys are serving up some of the most on-point and entertaining political humor around.

The Run for the festival is over but Political Asylum is on at the Brunswick Green the second Sunday of every month.

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2013/season/shows/late-night-riot-political-asylum-s

http://www.politicalasylum.com.au/

Hannah Gadsby – Happiness is a Bedside Table

By Lisa Clark

Well, that’s two years in a row that Hannah Gadsby’s impressed my pants off. I adored this show, it’s up there for my top show of the festival and we’re only half way through.

Hannah’s low key style and reserved demeanour belie a razor sharp and cheeky comic mind. The magic of this show creeps up on you as she gently and expertly takes you by the hand and leads you through a comedy journey about growing up and finding a sense of happiness.

As she points out, there is not a lot of comedy gold to be mined from contentment, so she shares with us some killer stories about embarrassment, losing her childhood innocence and losing her confidence which involve blind bunnies, the cruelty of children and bathing. The highlight that had the audience falling about, howling, was her description of a water slide adventure gone horribly wrong. She painted the sort of farcical scene you might see in a really good film comedy that makes you want to go out and see again.

There’s no wallowing in the low points of her stories, they’re as understated as her dry delivery. They are experiences she acknowledges are common to most people, but sets out so eloquently. That transition from the naïve fearless child through those horrible teen years that strip you of self-worth and if you are lucky bring you back to a more confident, happy but wiser adulthood. She chucks in the odd saucy innuendo along the way which delights the audience and seems to surprise herself.

I was thrilled to share this captivating journey with Hannah but was completely unprepared for the triumphant surprise ending that left me teary and joyful. This is exactly the kind of show I hope for when I go out to the festival. A superb comedian telling hilarious, poignant stories that will hang around long after the show is over.

Hannah Gadsby is performing up in the Supper Room at The Melbourne Town Hall.

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2013/season/shows/happiness-is-a-bedside-table-hannah-gadsby

Asher Treleaven – Bad Dandy

By Colin Flaherty

The title Bad Dandy indicates a theme of style over substance (which is exactly what this performance is all about) but there is also the clever contradiction of giving it plenty of depth. Asher Treleven gives the appearance of being preoccupied with telling us all about how great he is and all the things he is capable of, but not actually getting into his “material”. Meanwhile he is critiquing the theatrical conventions of stand up and all that surrounds it with some wonderful routines and fascinating lines.

All the performance elements that he covers are illustrated by example. These are brilliant jokes and routines but are constructed to look like teasers for a show that, as we progress beyond the half hour mark, may not eventuate.
The only routine that clearly resembles “prepared material” comes in the closing moments of the show; a bit that describes the Global Financial Crisis which utilises the audience. It is a wonderful extension of one of the sillier spectacles from his Wild Duck days in 2005.

There is lots of misdirection (ie. dressing his stage with beefcake/cheesecake photographs and telling us that they will be the only thing that we will remember from this show), ridiculously obvious hack techniques (ie. asking us if we understand clearly commonplace references) and numerous, seemingly offhand asides but they all feed into the overall concept. We are drawn into the artifice of “the performance” as he describes audience member tropes and points individuals out for all to see.

Asher carries this all off with his wonderful way with words and lashings of charm. His much lauded physicality provides plenty of colour and movement to give his routines an extra dimension.

This is a performance that caters to one audience on their own level without diminishing the experience for another group. Comedians and comedy nerds will have a ball with all the meta stuff going on. Everyday punters will enjoy the shenanigans of this wonderfully silly man and all his beautiful physicality. Everyone will get their comedic dollars’ worth of entertainment.

Bad Dandy is on at The Victoria Hotel
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2013/season/shows/bad-dandy-asher-treleaven

The Pajama Men – Just the Two of Both of Us

By Elyce Phillips

The Pajama Men (Shenoah Allen and Mark Chavez) are no strangers to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Back in 2009, they picked up the Barry Award and they’ve been a fixture of the festival ever since. Now the duo is back with ‘Just the Two of Both of Us’ – another very physical and very funny show. Armed with naught but two wooden chairs and musical accompaniment from Kevin Hume, The Pajama Men create a weird and wonderful world where men can be motorbikes and squirrels reporters.

There is not a dull moment in ‘Just the Two of Both of Us’. The pace these guys perform at is simply phenomenal. They whip between characters without missing a beat – from a king of legend and his wizard, to a teenage girl and her sullen boyfriend, to a couple of men driving and spitting out one-liners. It’s chaotic, but there is method to their madness and eventually all becomes clear in a hilarious and somewhat unexpected way.

The music from Kevin Hume was understated and beautifully suited to the show. The sheer loveliness of his live soundtrack was often an amusing counterpoint to the bizarre actions occurring on stage. Kudos to Hume for maintaining his deadly serious composure throughout! He is a stronger man than anyone else in the room. Even Allen and Chavez had each other laughing with the odd ad-libbed line throughout the night.

‘Just the Two of Both of Us’ is a truly wonderful show. The dynamic between Allen and Chavez is nothing short of brilliant. Their brand of physical humor is clever, silly and a lot of fun. It is one of the standout shows of the festival for mine.

The Pajama Men are performing at the Fairfax Studio at the Art Centre until April 21.
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2013/season/shows/just-the-two-of-each-of-us-pajama-men