Tag: Jenni Townsend

The Escape Room

By Erin Hill 

Watching the dysfunctional IT team of a tech company attempt to navigate an escape room doesn’t sound like a ripe premise for a comedy show. Throwing in a reluctant participant from Human Resources sounds like an actively un-ripening choice. But fear not the taste of the fruits of directing team Alex Chilton and Daphne Do. The Escape Room is a delicately crafted, thought-provoking and hilarious show.

The humour of this show rests evenly on its four key performers (Edward Chalmers, Shane Henry, Jenni Townsend and Alexis Watt) as it is partially improvised. Each embodies a typical character you might find in an office, and plays the flaws and foibles of these archetypes to perfection. I heard fellow audience members guffaw aloud at particular phrases; Watt’s spiel on ‘managing styles’ and the benefits of maintaining your LinkedIn profile clearly resonated with the audience on the night I attended.

I found myself in the entirely foreign position of lamenting my lack of a nine to five, and all the inane office politics that accompanies it; because I feel like the show and its jokes would have landed more strongly with that context. All the same the inherent tragedy of these characters transcends the minutiae of the setting; and lends itself to a universal comedy. Chalmers awkwardly negotiating conversation with HR’s Watt, Henry’s barely veiled disgust at working for someone he feels more qualified than, or an earnest Townsend diligently trying to solve the puzzles in time despite the chaos erupting around her; it all smacks of a humour we begrudgingly recognise from our own lives. It’s almost too real.

In keeping with that, the shows set pieces and escape room puzzles are similarly realistic. The Egyptian themed escape room hosts puzzles of complex intricacy. If Chilton and Do ever decide to leave comedy, the escape room industry would benefit. However the most honest piece of the escape room puzzle is Brian, played by David Todman, who runs at The Escape Room and is the kind of person that boasts “We don’t do handshakes here, only high-fives”. The wry tone that floods his voice bears all the sarcasm of a beleaguered someone who works somewhere people come to have fun.

This show is a satisfying slow burn, one which may lean too heavily on its audience having a similar experience; but then forced “team building exercises” with colleagues is a pretty common occurrence. The performances by the cast are impeccable and the way these improvisers bounce off one another as the situation in the room intensifies is very engaging. But walking away from The Escape Room, I was struck mostly by the comic tragedy of the characters Chilton and Do created. The innate comedy of careworn people just trying to get by, juxtaposed with unrelenting office politics and a fear of getting it wrong drives the show.

The Escape Room is very funny and intriguing; a high-concept adhered to with honourable fidelity, but the weight of this show rests on its nerve to cut so close to the bone.

The Escape Room plays at the Nicholson building from April 5th – April 8th

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2018/shows/escape

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Old Maude by Infinite Dads

By Colin Flaherty old-maude

Setting a sketch show entirely on board a flight bound for Bali is a fascinating concept and the team at Infinite Dads (Jarryd Bendall and Jenni Townsend) present some fun high-jinx at 40000 feet. Greeted by the cabin crew and enduring all the pre-flight checks, the audience is transported to this claustrophobic environment where we meet all manner of wacky characters. While the audio safety briefing is pretty funny, the video version on the facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/Infinite-Dads-149616882119093/) is better as it fills in some of the gaps.

They cover most of the standard tropes of air travel but thankfully not the food. It’s not all predictable fare – they manage to add some interesting twists to some well-trodden paths and there are a number of absurd sketches that go in inspired directions. However, the many arguing couples and a pair of YouTube teens could easily fit into any setting and seem to have been shoehorned into the theme.

The pair throw themselves wholeheartedly into the performance with plenty of exaggerated gesturing and wacky voices. They corpse a number of times, slowing things down a little, and this enthusiasm rubs off onto the audience somewhat. When they introduce a third character into this two hander things get a little clunky. Bendall ducks off stage, re-emerges as a new character and does the same disappearing act to get the original guy back into the scene.

Using minimal costume changes, they transition from one character to the next quickly to ensure that scenes flow seamlessly from one to the next, which happens so smoothly that it leaves minimal room for audience applause. Townsend switches genders for some of the roles but this is often not vital to the scene. Perhaps she digs putting on a comical moustache?

Being set on a plane means that staging is streamlined as they are usually performing seated next to each other rather than bouncing all over the stage but they get physical when required. It was nice to see all the sketches being tied neatly into the same world. This was not just with characters from other sketches popping in and out but a montage of the entire cabin that shows a particular sequence of events– a clever concept that saves this from being a sequence of disparate scenes.

The airplane concept was a pleasant surprise as the pre festival publicity doesn’t mention it at all. With almost everyone used to airline travel nowadays, there is plenty to appeal in this amusing hour of sketch by a pair of talented comedic actors.

Old Maude is on at The Improv Conspiracy until September 23.
https://melbournefringe.com.au/program?event/old-maude/8320dbb1-44cc-4f1a-b292-3dc94f145f52