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

John Conway – The New Conway Explosion

By Daniel Sheppard

One of my favourite discoveries of last year’s festival was John Conway’s “The New Conway Show” show, which I was recommending at every opportunity. There were a lot of expectations going in here, but instead of meeting those, John just decided to make whole new set of expectations and exceed those instead.
It’s difficult to describe John Conway’s surrealist comedy, not least because it’s hard to determine how much of the show is likely to be repeated from night to night. Whether re-enacting 90’s video games or creating giant string phone contraptions, most of the scenes have a fair bit of setup behind them, but they all seem like half-formed ideas that John is taking out for the night to see where they might lead him. Sometimes these leaves the show flying apart into chaos, but for the most part John pulls together a series of hilariously absurd sketches.
This new show has a lot in common with last year’s brilliant comedy festival debut, but if anything John seems to have allowed himself even greater reign with the improvised chaos. Helping to balance this out is Michael Burke, providing some grounding in the form of musical queues and a slightly more stable character for John to pull himself back to when his comedy takes him off into the deep.
John has a very infectious enthusiasm for what he’s doing, often barely able to contain himself or even complete his train of thought when caught up in a funny idea. With a less charasmatic performer, this often overwhelming enthusiasm could be off-putting, but through a bizarre combination of chaotic aggression and rapt innocence, the audience is never really given any choice but to get caught up in the madness.
This is not a show for everybody, and at certain moments it threatens not to be a show for anybody, but there’s a rich vein of comedy gold for anybody willing to follow John down into the chaos.
John Conway – The New Conway Explosion is on at Trades Hall