Sarah Quinn – Weird Lonely Strangers

By Annette Slattery

In her festival show, Weird Lonely Strangers, Sarah Quinn performs a composite of unrelated, solo sketches. Interspersed with smoky jazz, Quinn uses voiceovers and simple costume changes to relocate from one scene to the next. Quinn’s array of characters includes a regular, single young woman, a beauty pageant organiser, a private investigator, an English author and a prudish burlesque dancer.

Quinn’s performances are strong, however the writing is weak. There is one piece about a “reformed” lesbian which is very clever and funny, and which has the potential to be developed into something more substantial, but apart from that there is little to recommend here in terms of content. A lot of the ideas are weak, unoriginal or over done and the better jokes within the script are often camouflaged by some confusion in the writing.

Some of the sections of the show are presented simply as a pre-recorded voice over, with Quinn behind the curtain and the polite, but clearly unamused audience left staring at the empty stage. This only further sapped the remaining energy in the room.

That said, Quinn, as I mentioned, is a strong performer and those skills alone make this show watchable. However Quinn does not have the comedy chops to pull this off as a festival show.

Sarah Quinn – Weird Lonely Strangers is on at Tuxedo Cat, Flinders Lane.

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2012/season/shows/weird-lonely-strangers-sarah-quinn/