Tom Allen – Absolutely

By Peter Newling

A cold, wet, windy, unwelcoming Melbourne night and a climb up the cold, unwelcoming concrete stairs to the first floor of the Greek Centre were immediately offset by a warm welcome from the main attraction himself. Tom Allen greeted every guest personally, sharply dressed in an immaculate three piece pin stripe suit complete with silk pocket hanky.

He is a recognisable character. He has appeared on a number of the British panel shows that are shown here, including Mock the Week, Live at the Apollo, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and of course Great British Bakeoff An Extra Slice. The personal greeting upon entering allowed time for an extraordinary number of pre-show selfies to be taken at the request of adoring audience members – not something I’ve seen too often at festival shows.

His impeccable appearance and his obvious fondness for show tunes give you a fair idea of what to expect even before Allen makes it onto the stage. Tom’s comic character is camp, acerbic, bitchy, self absorbed and animated. His suit and his tongue seem to compete for sharpness. His stories are punctuated with moments of fast paced angst, high pitched excitement and wonderful under-the-breath backhanders.

Much of his material is based on growing up gay in England, and his current status as a thirty-something gay guy still living with his parents. His story lines are very much experience and relationship based – and he is a very fine story teller indeed. He manages to balance pomposity and judgementalism with delightful (very British) self deprecation.

Allen excels at audience interaction. He has a wonderful knack for drawing very funny information from a number of unsuspecting punters early in the set, then revisiting that information at appropriate moments over the course of the hour. It’s a real skill, and adds significantly to the enjoyment of the show.

Absolutely is a show that has been toured extensively, and has a confidence to it that lets the audience know they’re in safe hands. It’s great he has bought it to Melbourne.

Absolutely is on at the Greek Centre (Mykonos Room) until April 21
https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2019/shows/tom-allen

Ivan Aristeguieta – The Fourth Floor

By Peter Newling 

The advertising materials for this show tells us that when you hit 40, the usual Venezuelan expression is “Congratulations! You’ve made it to The Fourth Floor!”. Aristeguieta goes to great lengths to remind us that he has not, as yet, made it to the fourth floor – but’s it’s approaching quickly.

Much of the material in the show is, unsurprisingly, about ageing. His material moves effortlessly from conversations with his younger self, to the anomalies of the Xennial generation (it’s a thing – look it up!), to things of youth that you no longer want to/choose to/can do, to the agelessness of fart gags. And all delivered in a delightfully positive, optimistic and incurably enthusiastic way. There’s nothing angst ridden or cynical in Aristeguieta’s material or demeanour, which makes this such a standout from a lot of the other shows in the festival.

Aristeguieta has lived in Australia since 2012, and has made quite a name for himself at the various comedy festivals and touring comedy roadshows. This familiarity with Australia has given him a fantastic insider-outsider’s perspective on our foibles, accent and idioms.

You can tell that he loves language and languages – the different sounds, the different inflections, the different phraseology – and given that words and language are his main tools of trade, he uses them to his best advantage. He revels in the nuance. For those who love the idiosyncrasies of language, Aristeguieta’s observations and conclusions are masterful.

This for me is definitely an “add this show to your list of shows” show. This is a comic in fine form, with well-matured material. You’ll come away glad you did.

Ivan Aristeguieta, The Fourth Floor is playing 28 Mar – 21 Apr in the Athenaeum Theatre 2

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2019/shows/ivan-aristeguieta-the-fourth-floor

 

Space Force by Flat Pack

By Lisa Clark

Space Force is not a very political show but makes no bones about the fact that it was inspired by Trump’s idea and became an exploration of what might happen if Australia followed suit? It opens with the audience being trained as recruits for the new Australian Space Force and there began a running gag in the show.

The 5 talented, confident performers Ella Lawry, Georgie Daniels, Isabelle Knight, Madi Savage and Millie Holten, have had experience in uni reviews, which shows, and impro such as Improvised Shakespeare. There is certainly a vibe of an old fashioned uni review here, which is in no way a bad thing as so many famous comedians learn great skills this way. Each scene ends in a blackout (often for no really solid reason) and many with a round of applause. Only one scene change, the setting up for the restaurant scene, which is a little long, is covered by one of the members doing some musical comedy on the ukulele and this ended up being a highlight of the show for me, especially when there was a bit of a prop drop and she was able to improvise some laughs out of it without batting an eye. The scene changes could easily be dropped and the show could be a straight narrative which would make for a smoother running show.

What takes Space Force above the average uni review style show is that every one of the performers is uniquely comedically talented, and also that more money and effort has been put into the impressive props and costumes. There is also a delightful and unusual sense that this has not been completely bourne out of impro and faffing about, but rather much has been script written, containing a lot of funny lines and thoughtful weirdness. Not all the ideas land, of course, but the ratio of laughs is pretty high.

The restaurant scene was the hardest to pull off in every way. Farce is hard and requires very fine skills and the tightest of timing. The performers clearly know all ingredients but like the scene they are performing are throwing them around a bit willy nilly hoping they will stick. They don’t quite get there, but hopefully will learn and improve with each performance and it’s still pretty entertaining to watch. A warning, if you sit in the front row you might get wet, and not just with water.

The young women of the SS OZ give me hope for the future of comedy, particularly sketch comedy and I can see some of them becoming the comedy stars of tomorrow. So why not join Flat Pack and see them before they are famous?

Space Force is on at TIC Swanston, on the corner of Flinders Lane and Swanston,  (The Nicholas Building) take the lift to the 5th floor and follow the signs.

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2019/shows/space-force-au

5 Good Reasons To See Stark and Dormy

1. We’re quite sure this is the first time an Alien invasion puppet show will be part of the rather stoic and serious proceedings at The Coopers Malthouse.

2. Because Bunk Puppets invented 3D Shadow Puppetry… and we’re quite sure this is the first time a 3D Alien Shadow Puppet show with be part of the rather stoic and serious proceedings at The Coopers Malthouse.

3. To watch two grown men play with delicious puppets and act like hilarious fools.

4. To meet your yearly quota of watching riveting Russian accents on stage.

5. Have you ever wondered what Zebra tastes like? Or albino Orangutan? Come find out.

Stark and Dormy is on at The Coopers Malthouse until April 21
https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2019/shows/stark-and-dormy

Stuart Daulman : Masterclass

By Colin Flaherty

“Comedy genius” Stuart Daulman (Steve Bennett wrote it so it must be true!) presented a seminar detailing all that’s required to survive in the comedy game. If you’re expecting serious comedic writing tips you’re better off seeking the services of someone like Tim Ferguson. While he did cover stagecraft this was mostly about The Hustle, neediness and backstabbing that goes on.

This was an ambitious performance where, in true Daulman fashion, he fully committed to the concept. As lecturer he played it completely straight with plenty of business mantra chanting and constant requests for networking opportunites. The war stories got chuckles of recognition as did the familiar elements of festival shows.

Daulman’s delivery suited the piece and cleverly blurred the line of what was lighthearted joking and heart wrenching anger. A live phone call to his mum was a stilted awkward affair that was accurate rather than funny which may or may not have been the point. His descriptions of the humiliating process of ‘putting yourself out there’ and chasing a career in the arts was bleak comedy at it’s best.

Jake Ludowyke handled all AV duties using a delightfully old school overhead projector. The text shown on the slides was wonderfully excessive to give some context for those outside the industry (if you could read quickly enough that is) while having fun with Powerpoint sins. He showed many actual photos and posts from Stu’s social media as well as carefully selected quotes from show reviews (former Squirrel Elyce Phillips got a mention, umm… hooray?). Particularly adorable was the lo-fi animations using transparencies which when combined with bombastic music was hilarious. Ludowyke’s role was so much more, regularly acting as cheerleader for the audience to provoke reactions.

The finale was a demonstration of this master performer at work.  Stu ritually changed into the comedian’s uniform and ripped through a solid set that would go down well in any beer barn, but a lot of the big laughs for us are in recognising all the bad tropes covered previously. There was also the deeper understanding with the knowledge of all the shit he had gone through that provided extra layers.

This show was definitely geared towards an experienced festival audience, in particular those in the biz. This was so much more than a hilariously faux bad business seminar and laid out Stuart’s emotions bare. Stuart Daulman’s Masterclass was a powerful glimpse behind the curtain of the life of a standup comedian.

Masterclass is on at Melbourne Town Hall (Regent Room) until April 21
https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2019/shows/masterclass

Mark Watson : The Infinite Show

By Nick Bugeja

Mark Watson has a plan: to get to know people better, to tap into their inner lives, and to figure out what makes them tick. He tells us that things have been tough for him recently: the farce that is Brexit serves as a constant reminder of the sorry state of his native Britain, while a divorce in the past year has left him a little worse for wear. And it all makes for a fast-paced, genuinely enthralling 60 minutes of laughs.

You can really tell that Watson isn’t new to the comedy scene. There are some comics out there whose calibre of performance doesn’t reflect the amount of time they’ve been slaving away in dimly-lit bars, community halls, and comedy venues in search of cackling laughter. Neurotic, and often spluttering out his words, Watson is a comic with ample control over his material, the mood, and ultimately us as an audience.

There’s never any doubt – despite how “off-track” things may sometimes seem – that Watson is always pulling the strings. His random yet seamless interaction with the audience is truly, astonishingly good. Watson’s pre-organised material on his life as a stand-up, his divorce and his son’s “insubordination”, as Watson puts it himself, is invariably well-executed.

But it’s his spontaneous efforts working the crowd that stands out. Granted, on the night I saw his performance, there was one audience member who made good comedic fodder for Watson to latch onto; though he never failed to satisfy and up-the-ante during these little moments of exchange.

It’s early days in the Comedy Festival, yet it’s hard to see that many shows are going to eclipse what Mark Watson is producing right now. Bereavement may be the worst thing to go through for a person – as Watson tells us in his show – but missing his show might be high up on that list.

The Infinite Show is on at Melbourne Town Hall until April 21
https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2019/shows/mark-watson