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John Hastings – Comedian John

By Nick Bugeja

If you’re in search of hilariously off-putting, unsavoury, and frankly, depraved anecdotes crafted into comedy gold, then Canadian comic John Hastings is your man. His show, Comedian John, is a great combination of standalone one-liners, bits and call-backs, and, of course, compelling tales involving himself, friends and utter strangers. His performance style is bursting with energy; it’s almost as if, through sheer insistence, he’s willing you to laugh at every joke he enunciates in his booming Canadian voice. And it’s hard to resist the invitation.

Hastings’ is eminently likeable (even if he doesn’t present himself as a particularly ‘eminent’ individual), and much of this comes from his self-deprecating opening. “I don’t look any age, I just look like I’ve been through a lot”, he tells us. And that’s not all: he compares himself to a robustly ‘used car’, acknowledges his likeness to a generic Victorian police officer, and concedes that he doesn’t look like a lot of fun. But as the adage goes, we ought not judge by appearance.

By establishing his bona fides as a comedian in this way early in the show, Hastings affords himself an unfettered licence to launch into material on particularly thorny subjects and stories. Each of his ‘set piece’ stories—involving a mugging in a London park, an unfortunate incident implicating a vodka bottle, and a WWII veteran presenting at his high school (they are too good to detail further here in writing—hits with maximum impact. On their own, they are irrepressibly funny, and Hastings’ writing, pacing, and overwrought energy only serve to amplify this.

In my personal experience, comics performing in rooms like those in the Victoria Hotel, the smaller rooms of the Melbourne Town Hall and the Greek Centre deliver the highest rate and greatest volume of laughs per capita. Comics in these rooms are established, but are yet to hit their ceiling; they remain hungry and eager to please their audiences. Hastings’ is included in this category of comedians. His show is impeccably structured and, in terms of his performance, alive and electric.

Comedian John is on at the Victoria Hotel until 21 April.

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2024/shows/john-hastings

Geraldine Quinn – The Passion of Saint Nicholas

By Peter Newling

Geraldine Quinn has been delighting audiences with her stellar performing and song-writing abilities since the mid 2000s. A multiple winner of the MICF’s Golden Gibbo Award, she is well entrenched as one of Australia’s most loved and respected comedy and cabaret performers. This show carries on that proud tradition.

The subject matter is difficult. The death of a family member is awful. When that family member is a sibling dying way too young of a form of cancer, it’s worse. But somehow, Quinn has taken this dark base and constructed something joyful, life-affirming and (at appropriate moments) laugh out loud funny.

In The Passion of Saint Nicholas, Quinn explores her relationship with her late brother, hilariously relaying stories about childhood rivalries, juvenile one-upmanship, family favouritism and coping with loss. The half a dozen songs created for the show help punctuate the narrative, each differing from the last in style and energy. The songs move effortlessly from earnest sincerity to smiling piss-take and back again. She really is a terrific song writer. And her singing, as we all know, is outstanding.

Shout out to Declan Fay, the director of the show. The pacing and intensity levels throughout the hour were spot on. And the show is backed up by a first class sound plot.

This is an intensely personal piece, but with themes that will resonate with audiences young and old. The standing ovation offered at the end of the show I attended was heartfelt and genuine. It’s a remarkable piece, by a remarkable performer.

Get in quick. Geraldine Quinn – The Passion of Saint Nicholas is only playing until April 7 at the Malthouse, at 6:45pm and 5:45pm on the Sunday.

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2024/shows/the-passion-of-saint-nicholas

Stuart Daulman – Into the Galaxy

By Nick Bugeja

Stuart Daulman has laboured away on comedy stages and rooms at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) for nearly as long as some of his audience members have been alive. He’s a versatile and talented comic performer whose passion and commitment to the form is evident in his latest show, Into the Galaxy, an engrossing foray into an intergalactic world inhabited by Daulman’s cast of characters, not least himself. As it develops, you realise the show is less about a whimsical space story and more a self-examination of Daulman’s personal and professional aspirations, anxieties and convictions.

In this fictional world, Daulman had become an astronaut, and he’s setting out on a mission to space, in the company of an artificial intelligence computer much like HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey (minus the malice and malevolence). His take-off and journey into space from the comfort of his spaceship is pre-recorded, and displayed on a projector. These sequences give structure to the show, and serve the incident purpose of giving Daulman enough time to change between the well-curated costumes for each of his characters.

The first of these is 12-year-old Daulman, then a South African resident of ‘Jozi’ with dreams of entering into space. Daulman winds back the clock when playing his younger self, and executes a perfect South African (or rather, South Efrican) accent. A surprise cameo from former President Nelson Mandela makes for great, good-natured comedy, characteristic of the entire show.

Daulman’s other sketch performances—as a self-promoting businessman who he’d encountered at astronaut school, practicing his golf swing, and an alien suspended in space—were equally relished by the audience. The entire performance was marked by the thought and work—evidenced by each gesture, facial expression, staging choice, costume, and joke—Daulman had invested to create a funny, personal and reflective show.

Into the Galaxy is a breath of fresh air at MICF, amid a catalogue of largely
homogeneous stand-up performances. It’s a living and breathing performance by a man clearly passionate about the arts, comedy and performance, and delivers a steady stream of laughs throughout. Stuart Daulman is a comic workhorse whose preferred genre of comedy may not enjoy the widest appeal, though it should.

Into the Galaxy is on at the Victoria Hotel until 21 April.

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2024/shows/into-the-galaxy

Dan Rath – Pariah Carey

By Nick Bugeja

There’s something about Dan Rath. There are few comedians who, at the mere sight of them, elicit smiles and laughter. Rath is one of them; his utterly unorthodox, controlled mania on stage is unfailingly amusing, as he saunters around the stage incessantly rubbing his hair, deliberately stumbling over his words, and drinking what he claims is ‘lighter fluid’ (spoiler: it’s really sparkling water).

Almost nothing Rath says is even remotely plausible: he states that he both lives above a ‘backpackers’ and also at his parents’ home, that one of his main interests is hurling activated e-scooters into rivers, and that he’s been afflicted by Lyme’s disease after being bitten by a tic in the CBD. There’s no pretense about any of this: they’re all unashamed lies, and in their absurdity, there’s nothing else to do but to break out in laughter.

Rath is an acquired taste (perhaps just like the ‘lighter fluid’ he’s consuming during the show), though those yet to consider themselves Rath acolytes are most definitely missing out on something special. His comedy has an addictive quality, and you’re waiting to see how he can surpass the ridiculousness, and creativity, of his most recent one-liner. You won’t be waiting for long: Rath’s style is one of rapid-fire joke after joke, delivered without ever breaking the strange and morose and ‘unwell’ character he inhabits onstage.

Rath’s capacity to generate comedy through the specificity of his jokes, which in turn creates humorous imagery for the audience, is unparalleled. By dropping in reference to businesses like JB-Hi-Fi, Boost Juice, Grill’d, Optus, Uber Eats in his act, Rath elevates each joke of his to another level of outlandishness, and hilarity.

Rath’s not alone in trading in this kind of comedy; there’s a small nucleus of Australian comics who embrace the nonsensical, the offbeat, and at times, the outrageous. But he stands at the pinnacle of this comedic form, and his show, Pariah Carey, provides almost 60-minutes of unrelenting, escapist humour.

Pariah Carey is showing at the Melbourne Town Hall until 21 April.

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2024/shows/pariah-carey

Damien Power – Not So Funny Now Is It?

By Nick Bugeja

Without a doubt, Damien Power is one of Australia’s pre-eminent comic minds working today. That estimation includes expats who have established themselves in the bigger markets of the UK and the US, à la Jim Jefferies and Steve Hughes. Power’s latest show, Not So Funny Now Is it?, is surely one of his best yet, and only bolsters the claim that he is veritably unmissable at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) this year.

He’s been plying his trade in Australian pubs, comedy clubs and entertainment venues for years, and consistently churning out material and shows outstripping many of his contemporaries. You only need to look back to the last few MICF galas to see the gulf in quality in Power’s comedy and other prominent acts, who often reek of sameness in terms of material, delivery and sensibility. Yet he’s yet to get his dues.

Not So Funny Now Is It? should be the show which catapults Power to comedy stardom. He returns to his familiar themes—of the generational divide, shifting values and ethics in Australian society, the place and utility of religion, mental health, geopolitics and international relations—with a renewed sharpness and vigour, using a mixture of well-executed stand-and-deliver bits and act outs. Power takes on both big (corporate players like Nike) and small (meth addicts on public transport) targets, and his jokes always have a social commentary component, giving them a resonance beyond the laughter which abounded through the Comedy Republic.

Considering the advent of so-called ‘TikTok comedians’ and the generally unchallenging and ‘play it safe’ core of Australian comedy acts, it’s nothing less than a duty for all good comedy lovers to attend Power’s Not So Funny Now Is It? If we were all to follow this edict, Power may just finally reach the popularity and acclaim which he is overdue.

Not So Funny Now Is It? is showing at Comedy Republic until 21 April

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2024/shows/not-so-funny-now-is-it

Adam McKenzie – Hacked

By Lisa Clark

Having been part of a recent major Information data breech, as many millions have (including some in the audience), has inspired Adam McKenzie to create Hacked which goes beyond his personal experience and to humankind’s whole relationship with the internet, our life online and the fear and conflicted emotions about it.

Adam’s comedy is always somewhat nerdy but he’s no tech geek and this is very much a lay persons traipse through the internet and its possible pitfalls and traps. Despite some of the dark subject matter, it’s all lighthearted and goofy with Adam providing a fun time for the general Festival audience.

Adam riffs on the horrors of Identity theft, The Mysterious Cloud, creepy algorithms, Deep Web, Dark Web and sophisticated scams. It can be a bit loose at times without a clear through line and Adam rushes his delivery a little, but that will settle down during its run. As well as all the current IT talk, there is a lot of nostalgia in the show, specifically for Gen X as Adam takes us through using a 90s Nokia, internet cafes, early email and how things have become more complex for modern teens via his love of Beverly Hills 91210

Of course there is quite a bit of screen use in this show, illustrating Adam’s points and gags. The highlight of the show, apart from a little magic, is his A.I. side kick who gives Adam someone to riff off and argue exasperatedly with, garnering some huge laughs. It puts Adam in his comfort zone, having a foil and I wish the character had a larger part in the show.

Adam maintains a warm and personal relationship with the audience, checking in with us regularly and getting to know us as he is also revealing his private information with us. There was some gentle audience participation, where Adam asks us to play with him, and I was very appreciative that he made very sure audience members wanted to join in. Consent is King!

I’ve always enjoyed Adam’s work, he’s been working in comedy for a long time, winning various comedy awards. Before going solo he has done a lot of sketch comedy; being part of the exceptional Anarchist Guild gang, The Hounds and is perhaps mostly famous for being part of Watson. Go check out Hacked, it will make you laugh and gasp at the horrors of our digital life. I for one welcome our A.I overlords.

Adam McKenzie – Hacked is on at The Malthouse until April 21

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2024/shows/adam-mckenzie-hacked#