Reviews – Page 149 – Squirrel Comedy

David Quirk : Career, Suicide

By Sofia Monkiewicz

If you want to see a comedy show containing a variety of stories about careers and/or suicide, then David Quirk’s Career, Suicide might be a disappointment for you. With minimal content on both of these topics, this show is a left-of-centre comedic narrative, focusing mainly on skateboards, vegans, and towels. Mostly towels.

David Quirk is an odd character. Confident but slightly awkward. Amusing but with some serious undertones. His humour is in his storytelling, which he does well; he captures the interest of the audience with his epic tales of strange life experiences and funny conversations he has had. His stories are long and entertaining and he builds them carefully, however, unfortunately there is a severe lack of theme and no punchy or memorable endings to many of them.

Entering the stage in only a towel and dripping with water from head to toe, Quirk creates a narrative from the very beginning. We want to know the backstory, and once we know the backstory we want to know how it ends. This particular journey of his is delivered with enthusiasm and wit, but it does not successfully form a strong backbone for the entirety of the show as presumably intended. Most of Quirk’s material is amusing but not laugh-out-loud funny, and that’s alright; the audience remain engaged and smiling throughout. The skateboard anecdotes are witty and original, especially the retelling of a surprising altercation with a crude eight-year-old girl, and a spontaneous semi-striptease nicely breaks up the word-heavy script.

Quirk is a skateboarder, an animal activist and a vegan, as well as being a stand-up comedian, and we become well aware of his passion for animal rights in this show. He has some insightful thoughts about veganism, and tells several jokes about the judgemental questions he is often asked about the assumed consequences of his lifestyle. At one point he does cross the line a little from being sarcastically funny to critical and preachy, and it felt as though we were being berated as a group for potentially (and probably) being meat-eaters. His strong opinions are admirable, but at times it did become more of a speech about his vegan beliefs than an amusing take on our eating habits.

Overall, David Quirk has managed to create an entertaining show. His dry sense of humour and serious nature compliments the content of Career, Suicide, and although the stories themselves do not have any noticeable theme or strong conclusions, the material is clever, well-written and droll.

Career, Suicide is on at Melb Town Hall until April 20
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/career-suicide-david-quirk

Sarah Kendall : Touchdown

By Caitlin Crowley

Sarah Kendall kicks off Touchdown with a massive call all the way back to her previous show when she wrapped up with a story of being caught calling her teacher the King of Cxxts. She only reprises the joke because after her last show her mum called her on its authenticity, “That’s not what really happened is it dear?” So Kendall is here to set the record straight and as a result takes us on a warts-and-all coming-of-age story about her teenage years in Newcastle.

Touchdown is as well-crafted and satisfying as a 90s teen movie. It’s the tale of the awkward underdog, the prettiest girl in school, a daggy librarian and yearning for love with the perfect boy. The journey is hilarious, moving and unexpected. There are bucket loads of evocative 90s references from Policy Academy to Jaws 4, bad hairstyles and Neil Diamond concert t-shirts.

This is more than an hour of stand-up though, this is story-telling at its finest. Kendall manages to be both bitingly sharp and incredibly warm as she takes us through that time in life when you learn that you can spend your whole life with people but not know anyone at all. The show shifts smoothly from a self-deprecating cack to a tender tale of realising that not everything is as it seems.

Touchdown is a rewarding hour of comedy and Kendall is a master at tying up loose ends. At the end I wanted to see read the book and see the film. I loved it.

Touchdown is on at Melb Town Hall – Old Met Shop until April 20
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/touchdown-sarah-kendall

Oliver Clark’s Comeback Special

By Alanta Colley

Sporting an electric blue velvet 2 piece suit, a debonair smile, matching cufflinks and more than one copy of his recently released album ‘Warming up the pipes’ Clark delivers us a dash of piping hot Las Vegas smarm. Er, charm.

Clark’s act evokes the laughter of awkwardness as he pauses after each gag to reflect on his humour with a chuckle to himself. The man’s face is a theme park of expressions; he could sign for his own show just using his eyebrows. Clark will show you how to double take a double take. More than once.

Clark pushes stereotypes of the great crooners such as Tom Jones and Elvis to new and uncomfortable levels; burying us in another era, as he sets the mood of each song with his disco ball and cheeky one liners. You’ll be inculcated in a world of cocktail parties, holidays to Acapulco, long lost romances and sweet love ballads. Perhaps more than a little self-assured of just how much charisma he is packing Clark tiptoes the line indelicately between charming and downright creepy. The result evokes no few squawks of laughter from the audience.

In this show Clark also employs a baguette in a manner you’ve not seen before, and in all likeliness will not will see again. Clark’s sweet-talking a sandwich routine was disturbingly erotic. Or erotically disturbing.

Clark’s rather exquisite guitar chops emerge half way through the performance. When he really lets loose in song it is a truly pleasurable experience, I forgot to feel uncomfortable for a good five minutes or so.

This isn’t a show for the shy audience member; you may very well receive a full frontal assault of Clark’s particular brand of charm. Things can get uncomfortably intimate. The doors may be locked during the performance. You’ve been warned. Characterful comedy with class and charisma on the rocks.

Oliver Clark’s Comeback Special is on at Portland Hotel – Locker Room until April 19
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/comeback-special-oliver-clark

Sara Pascoe vs The Truth

By Lisa Clark

Sara Pascoe is strange. It took a while for me to warm to her, especially after she opens with a convict joke but it’s a set up for later on when she admits ‘I like to say something at the beginning that means I have to win the audience back’. It worked and she proved to be an intelligent, fascinating and slightly unhinged performer who was fun to spend an hour with.

There are lots of weird aspects to Sara Pascoe vs The Truth, I always worry about comedians when they brag about drinking too much, she also goes through some irrational fears, and worrying paranoia. I enjoyed a rant against hairdressers that led to her having to cut her own hair and her horror gig story garnered a lot of sympathy from the audience.

The topics Sara covers are a bit all over the place but the audience can’t miss the major theme for this show. It’s written on the Tshirt Sara had especially printed and is wearing; “There are no facts, only interpretations.” – Friedrich Nietzsche. She repeats this throughout the show and it often makes a good punchline. There are actually a lot of surprisingly intellectual moments throughout the show. She also becomes gradually more political, but never hits you over the head with her ideas.

Sara Pascoe is clearly very experienced at stand up from the UK and keeps the audience laughing throughout. She is more of a joke teller than a story teller in that the stories feel like they are there for the jokes rather than because she wants to share a tale with us and there is no overarching tale as such. That’s not to say that there isn’t some form of structure, with her repeated quote reminding audiences to ask where the truth lay in her words.

It’s hard to know if the drunken, rude, paranoid side of Sara is a character she puts on for the audience or not. That’s a more acceptable type of comedian than a brilliant, erudite, feminist, philosopher, perhaps. Sara Pascoe vs The Truth is definitely a show I would recommend to audiences with open minds who enjoy something a bit skewed. Certainly one to take your friends to who like something smart and different.

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/vs-the-truth-sara-pascoe

The First Five

By Noel Kelso

Have you ever watched a stand-up comedian perform and thought to yourself afterwards, ‘I could do better than that’?

Well now is your chance to give it a try. The First Five is a comedy workshop for those wanting to learn the art of the stand-up. Hosted by Melbourne comedian Lauren Bok this is an hour during which participants are shown mike technique, the building blocks of a joke, how to turn a mundane situation into something absurd and how to think like a comedian.

Oh – and if you attend you must perform.

To begin each member of the group is asked to stand and tell the others their name, what they ate for breakfast, something which they dislike and something which they like. Then they have to repeat that on stage from behind a microphone. This exercise is a great ice-breaker and helps to get everyone relaxed with one another and comfortable with the stage.

We are then given advice on stage presence, delivery and how to relax. One of the key factors mentioned is economy of speech; particularly relevant to myself as I can ramble on a bit as may be obvious from my reviews.

Next is the joke development section where we were asked to select pieces of paper from four buckets containing different topics, feelings, questions or phrases with blank spaces to be filled. These formed the seeds of our acts and we wrote ideas down, discussing them in small groups before performing.

I should point-out at this stage that my wife had accompanied me under the impression that she would simply be observing. So to discover that she too was expected to perform was a bit of a surprise.

But we both performed and managed to get some laughs from those in the room. This is where the great potential for this workshop lies – in encouraging not only those who wish to enter stand-up, but those whose professions might involve presentations at meetings or conferences. This is the sort of workshop which encourages participants to develop ideas outside of the normal parameters and would be invaluable to someone in a dry profession who has to attend conferences and speak.

Lauren Bok makes a fine mentor and is always on hand to offer advice throughout. The workshop itself works best with small numbers as the time is limited and there is a lot to get through, but I highly recommend it to anyone wishing to hone their stand-up skills

The First Five is on at the Imperial Hotel until April 12
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/the-first-five

Cal Wilson : It Could Have Been Me

By Alanta Colley

Cal Wilson, the likable Kiwi who has appeared on QI and all about invites us this comedy festival to meet the people she could have been.

What if she’d never left Auckland? What if she’d been a man? What if she had married one of the boyfriends of her twenties? What if she’d never married? The figments of Cal’s imagination spiral into ever more erratic and fanciful creations with ever more twisted destinies before our eyes.

Cal ponders what would have happened if the fear of the unknown had prevented her from moving to Australia and had taken over her life. Still performing at children’s parties in her 40’s, Fairy Robot Sparkle clamps down on fun; warning children of the imminent danger lurking in common household items and at every turn. She makes them know that death is always watching. We meet a posturing self-congratulatory sleaze bag who sought fame writing erotic science fiction novels; Calibran – Cal’s persona had she turned out to be a man. We meet the Cal who married one of her boyfriends in her 20’s; this time at his funeral; Cal toting the accent of a woman who had been forced to change to meet her husband’s expectations. We meet Adele – a feminist poet who seems unsatisfied with life. As the characters develop and expand things start to get out of control.

This show is packed to the hilt full of props, performance, puns and punch. Cal’s characters are rich and ridiculous and a lot of fun. The plot is wild and dynamic. We watch as various parts of Cal’s past, future and present both real and imaginary come colliding together in a cacophony of absurdity.

The show is a thorough delight. Quirky, well-executed and funny. Cal displays the well-honed acting skills that failed to get her into any of the many acting schools that she auditioned for. Their loss was our gain. A rollercoaster of ridiculousness; get along if you can.

It Could Have Been Me is on at Melb Town Hall – Powder Room until April 20
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/it-could-have-been-me-cal-wilson