Tag: Sarah Jones

Pajama Party

By Lisa Clark 

Sarah Jones and Nicholas Johnson are having a Pajama Party and none of their guests show up but it still manages to be a fun party. How could it not be with a magician and a ventriloquist running things?

Pajama Party has all the elements you might expect from a good party, including, party games, party food, entertainment, a DVD to watch and stories to tell. Fairly dark stories. Darkness plays a big part in this show. Whether it is the perfectly, comically timed blackouts or the content of a lot of the material that often turns corners into wrongtown. Sarah and Nicholas manage to balance a precarious relationship of bickering best friends who occasionally cross the line and come back to winning us and each other over.

Although the show is a series of sketches, it never feels sketchy. The performance flows as seamlessly as the events of a well organised party. The voice of a radio DJ is used cleverly throughout to connect scenes and pull it all together. There is a lot of prop comedy and the audience is coerced into pulling their weight.

Sarah Jones and Nicholas Johnson are both proven performers in their own right. Although perhaps better known for their ventriloquist and magic skills, they can hold their own on any standup bill as they have worked hard at building their comedy skills and here their brilliant magic and vent skills are the icing on the cake rather than the other way around as is often the case. In Pajama Party Nicholas performs one of the most famously impressive card tricks there is but he subverts the showstopper so that the laughs have priority and it is one of the most impressive comedy/magic bits I’ve seen in a long time.

There is a lot of subverting going on in Pajama Party, every element has been given an unexpected twist and it’s not surprising it was nominated for a Golden Gibbo Award at this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival. For a seemingly ramshackle low-fi Fringe show, it’s actually a pretty polished affair and the experience of Sarah and Nicholas shines. They also make a really enjoyable team and I can highly recommend you accept their party invitation.

Pajama Party is on at The Imperial Hotel until Sept 29
http://www.melbournefringe.com.au/fringe-festival/show/pajama-party/

5 good reasons to see Pajama Party

1. It’s just like a party! But with more sitting in the dark, facing forward and laughing.

2. During our Adelaide run, a dog ran across the stage in the middle of the show. Can you believe it? A dog! It probably won’t happen again but you really can’t afford to take that chance.

3. You can show up in your sleepwear and no will look at you funny. Unless you sleep in the nude.

4. Two Words: Fairy Bread. Did you know Australia is the only country in the world with fairy bread? Look it up. It’s true. Not like that thing we made up about the dog running across the stage in Adelaide

5. If our show was a baked good it would be one of those Pork Floss buns from Breadtop. Equal parts sweet and terrifying.

Sarah Jones and Nicholas Johnson perform Pajama Party at The Downstairs Lounge @ The Swanston Hotel for the first two weeks of the festival. 

Sarah Jones’ Magical History Tour

By Cathy Culliver

There’s really nothing to not like about Sarah Jones; she’s sweet, warm and engaging with a healthy dose of self-deprecation. And the lady is one fine ventriloquist.

Her latest show Sarah Jones’ Magical History Tour takes the audience through the history of ventriloquism while introducing a host of colourful characters along the way.

There’s Maxwell the magical parrot (who may or may not survive the show), the mermaid Helvetica and Dennis Hall the tennis ball, to name a few. Jones also manages to make one of the audience members her puppet, which makes for one of the funniest moments of the show.

If there is a criticism of this thoroughly enjoyable show, it would be that more material on the history on ventriloquism is needed; instead of it being the focus of the show as the title would suggest, Jones only devotes a small segment to it.

What material she does have, however, is as interesting as it is entertaining. For example, did you know that early ventriloquists didn’t use puppets at all? Instead they used their skills to trick people into thinking it was a spirit talking to them.

Jones also mentions that although it used to be a popular art form in the days of vaudeville, she is now one of only four ventriloquists left in the whole of Australia. It seems sad and a little alarming.

Given Jones has only been performing ventriloquism for two and a half years, we can only hope this talented performer keeps going from strength to strength and keeps this art form alive for some years to come.

 

Sarah’s Show has finished it’s season in Adelaide.

5 Good Reasons to see Sarah Jones Does Not Play Well With Others – at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Sarah Jones is a Ventriloquist / Comedian from Melbourne currently living in London. She recently took a trip to Fort Mitchell, Kentucky for the World Ventriloquist Convention Vent Haven and is preparing for her first go at the Edinburgh Fringe. She’s found some time to give us all 5 Good Reasons to see her show…

1. The show has puppets. The quirky, whimsical kind, not the kind that come alive in the night and eat your soul. It’s a great show to see if you love puppets, like puppets, are indifferent to puppets or have a debilitating fear of puppets that you wish to overcome.

2. There’s a pretty funny Star Wars bit in. If you like Star Wars you will really enjoy it. If you don’t like Star Wars, well, it only goes for a few minutes so you can just close your eyes for a bit and think of things you do like. Like sex and cake and pugs wearing bow ties.

3. You can use it as an excuse to ask your crush on a date. If they say no you just say “yeah, I was totally joking! As if I would ask you out to a ventriloquist show. I don’t even like you anyway.”

4. If your crush says yes and you go to my show you will definitely get a second date. We can even secretly arrange for me to turn up at the next date and pretend that we’re friends. Your crush will be impressed that you know someone famous (we’ll lie and tell them that I’m super famous in Australia.) I’ll come up to you and say “Hi!” and you can say “Not, now I’m kinda busy.” Your crush will swoon because you are so badass and important.

5. It’s a ventriloquist show! Everyone likes ventriloquism right? Right? No, wait, don’t leave! Love me! Love me like I love you!

My show is this one:  http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/sarah-jones-does-not-play-well-with-others

Sarah Jones Does not Play Well with Others is on at C Venues – C Aquila from the 19th to the 27th of August at 2.30pm