Kraken by Trygve Wakenshaw

By Alanta Colley

The multi- award-winning Gaulier-trained performer Trygve Wakenshaw is back this comedy festival with a brand new adventure in the genre of physical theatre.

Wakenshaw presents a veritable stream of consciousness expressed through the medium of mime. Surreal, otherworldly, dictated entirely by an internal logic of association, this mime escapade wanders through worlds of abstract imaginings; from births of baby animals, to the land of television, into the sky, into musical creation and on. Wakenshaw deftly plays with mime tropes; both mocking and revitalising them.

His mime is so evocative the entire audience lurches and recoils with each new action; our willing suspension of disbelief in full throttle. As he swallows unlikely objects we fear for his wellbeing; as he transmogrifies into any number of animals we blithely get on board. There seems to be few concepts which he can’t communicate through mime. Rarely will you witness an audience this captivated. Wakenshaw’s persona is cheeky, playful, tiptoeing on the edge of clumsy and larger than life. He alternates between a child-like innocence and projecting a wanton touch of macabre, keeping the audience on the edge of surprise and delight for the entire hour
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Wakenshaw uses words sparingly, though when he does his deep, Shakespearian tone takes us by surprise. The effect is delightful. His use of frugal use of props is effective and testament to his skills as a performer. Wakenshaw commands an extraordinary physicality in the tradition of Mr Bean, and in a similar league with Boy With Tape on His Face, but of a much more surreal school. The show employs generous lashings of audience participation in an entirely playful, fun and cheeky manner. While the performance would have required an enormous amount of energy to deliver it never loses the feeling of being a game.

This show is utterly captivating, deeply imaginative and uproariously hilarious. Wakenshaw is one of a kind. An absolute must see this Festival; you’re watching an absolute master at work.

Kraken is on at The Tuxedo Cat until April 19
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/kraken-by-trygve-wakenshaw

Jennifer Wong – Laughable: The One-Liner Show

By Alanta Colley

The demure and delightful Jennifer Wong presents the picture of an entirely unlikely comedian. Shy, introverted, and softly spoken, Wong endears us almost instantly with her particular brand of improvised punning. In Laughable Wong walks us through the day in the life of a ‘Puntrovert’; puns at absolutely every turn. As Wong explains, the puntrovert thrives on groans, so the audience’s loud responses to her incessant word play only makes her stronger and eggs her on.

Wong displays the unique talent of a punner on the run; working with whatever material the audience provides she improvises puns on the most unlikely subject matter. Every night I imagine will be a unique masterpiece of this perpetual play on words.

This is gentle and genial comedy. Wong employs each of us as characters she meets along the way on her day of punning about town. On this particular night we saw what Wong could cook up with a librarian, a psychologist, fish and chips, and various bakery items. Her interactions with the audience are delicate and respectful and as such she gets the very best from people happy to contribute to this collaborative tale being woven.

Wong plays with the stereotypes surrounding her Chinese heritage. As well as our expectations that she’ll play with the stereotypes of her Chinese heritage. She manipulates meta comedy for her own purposes. Wong proves she’s a bilingual punner; capable of punning in Cantonese as well as English. Luckily, she’s also happy to translate for us.

Punning and improvisation are unlikely bedfellows making this show something quite special. Even if puns aren’t your preferred form of comedy you can’t help but be impressed by their sheer multitude in this performance. We can almost hear the whirring of Wong’s mind as she revisits episodes throughout our narrative towards the end with a fresh batch of puns out of the oven. It’s not quite clear how she managed to concoct them while the show powered along.

Intelligent, engaging and unashamedly uncool comedy from a deeply endearing up-and-coming comic. A pleasant addition to your Comedy festival experience.

Laughable: The One-Liner Show is on at the Forum Theatre – Ladies’ Lounge until April 20
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/laughable-the-one-liner-show-jennifer-wong

Perfect Tripod : Australian Songs

By Alanta Colley

Tripod and Eddie Perfect are a match made in heaven. Perfect’s jazz tones and soulful bass complement the already dynamic and elastic voices of the infamous comedy trio. Performing in the 900 seater Play House in the Arts Centre the quartet display the full range of their musical prowess. Though despite the fancy venue and the formal suits they’ve not discarded the playful irreverence for which we know and love them for; using VB bottles for tuning; and being ready to mock each other at any given opportunity.

This show is a celebration of the richness of Australia’s musical heritage. It’s hard not to swim in sentimentality as we encounter the familiar sounds from the halls of musical fame. John Farnham’s ‘You’re the Voice’ gets a reworking that is not a little cheeky. Gotye’s celebrated ‘Heart’s a Mess’ takes on a new dimension; the four part male harmony fully embodying its sweet soulfulness. The more modern greats in the shape of Lanie Lane and Clare Bowditch are also included in the line-up. The Bee Gees; those sometime Australians also made an appearance. As well as a few delightful features from Tripod and Perfect’s own body of works.

The show is an emotional rollercoaster; full of laughs, reminiscence and spinal chills at moments of absolute pitch perfection. There are no low points in the performance. Flexing their musical mastery every song inhabits a different genre and a new interpretation from the original. The four exercise egalitarianism in divvying the spotlight; taking turns to lead. The result is an ever moving, entirely entertaining hour of vocal magic.

This is the second time round this show has been part of the Melbourne Comedy Festival and it is no less enjoyable the second time round. New songs have made it to the set list. An ecstatic evening of A cappella brilliance from Australia’s deeply loved comic muses.

Australian Songs was on at Arts Centre Melbourne, Playhouse
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/australian-songs-perfect-tripod

Death in Bowengabbie

By Alanta Colley

Housed in the delightfully homely La Mama theatre, this play written by award winning playwright Caleb Lewis and directed by seasoned Director Matt Edgerton speaks to a tradition of delightfully dark Australian comedy.

Oscar (Bryce Youngman) plays both narrator and protagonist, as well as all of the other characters; slipping seamlessly between roles. He tells the tale of the town of Bowengabbie, which has suffered the very real fate of so many small towns of having lost its younger generation to the opportunities and promise of the big city. A town haunted by its past, and doomed to its childless future as its inhabitants steadily age, and, one by one, drop off the perch.

Death beckons Oscar back to Bowengabbie. Again. And again. In an uncanny series of events Oscar is brought back to Bowengabbie no less than five times in the space of a few months to funeral after funeral. And these funerals are no ordinary funerals; Bowengabbie may be on its last legs as a town, but funerals appear to be its specialty. Oscar, who had done his best to forget his past and eradicate this small town with its painful history becomes beholden to the happenings and the people in the town.

We watch as Oscar helplessly is drawn into the small town goings on. Why are these funerals so festive? What is Pop up to? What lurks in Gary’s shed and just why is he so drawn to Rachel? Oscar’s personal life and ambitions slowly start to fall apart as Bowengabbie’s mysterious grip tightens around him.

Echoing some of the themes of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Death in Bowengabbie explores some of the tender themes of love and loss, of regret, sacrifice and devotion. It is a cheeky and heart-warming production; reminding us that our ties to our history, family and roots aren’t as escapable as we like to think they are.

This is a delicious comedy flecked with pathos, whimsy and some rather dramatic plot twists. Get along if you can.

Death in Bowengabbie is on at La Mama until April 13
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/death-in-bowengabbie

Jordana Borensztajn – Like Me, Love Me, Retweet Me

By Lisa Clark

The main impression from this show about social media is that the audience is at a work seminar in a tiny cramped bright room up many flights of stairs in a ‘clean comedy’ venue (so don’t swear too much coming up all those bloody stairs). Luckily it’s a very good seminar by a talented, engaging performer, Jordana Borensztajn, who, yes, does professional seminars about social media.

The premise of Like Me, Love Me, Retweet Me was that Jordana is a bit obsessed with creating a better self-image of herself online, but there was no deep emotional story here, that idea seemed (ironically) pasted over the top of what was more of an excuse to poke fun at how the internet has changed our lives and the crazy pitfalls of social media. Right down to just showing us some time wasting silly cat videos for fun. Well it couldn’t really be a show about the internet without cat videos could it?

All of Jordana’s audio-visual work is top notch from the stunning introductory video to the pictures supporting her act throughout and her vox pop interviews with people about social media on the street where someone rather shockingly, so casually talks about presenting themselves as a brand online. It all goes seamlessly and is also mostly supportive of rather than instead of the comedy. Except maybe her ‘Funny things I found on line’ bit, which fell a bit flat, possibly because we’ve all found much funnier things online than the ones she presents.

Jordana cleverly treats the audience like her online contacts, constantly craving approval, asking for likes, photos and the inevitable selfies. Taking Shakespeare’s idea that All the World’s a Stage and showing how the internet is one big stage upon which we all perform our parts is even more true for a born performer like Jordana. She is bright, perky and passionate about her pursuits.  There is a bit of harmless audience participation that as usual is a bit more fun for the participants and their friends than the rest of us. She also gets the audience to help her out in the fabulous finale which is a brilliant idea as she acknowledges that singing is not her strong suit.

As a bit of a nerd who evolved with computers by hanging out with serious geeks who could build computers from scratch and created IT departments at major universities when there were none, I found it all a bit mainstream and not terribly illuminating. A lot of her observations and ideas are not very new, especially in on-line world. This was not written for computer geeks. This is for groups of friends and family members who find the online world fun but perplexing and want to have a relaxing laugh about how ridiculous it has all become and Jordana has written just the show.

Jordana Borensztajn – Like Me, Love Me, Retweet Me is on at Comedy on Collins which is the clean comedy venue, so no swearing or rude stuff.

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/like-me-love-me-retweet-me-jordana-borensztajn

 

5 Good Reasons to see Kyle Kinane

5. I had a coupon for free pants. I’d attempted to redeem it several months ago. I think the pants are finally in the mail. This makes me rest easier. Now I can focus on the show, and not have to worry about the pants.

 

4. Technically I haven’t received the pants yet. I just got an email from a lady at the pants place saying they’ve been sent. I have a tracking number, but the package history goes blank after last Thursday. This concerns me.

 

3. I’m relying on a neighbor to collect my mail while I’m out of country. She seems nice but I haven’t really trusted her with anything of this magnitude. I don’t think she’d steal the pants. Not for herself, anyway. She has a petite frame and they’d never fit. But she could use them to lure male suitors of my size.

 

2. I wish I’d never answered this survey. I was doing fine until you made me think of the pants. The odd thing is, I HAVE pants. No shortage of trousers. But these pants, their evasiveness intrigues me.

 

1. I’m never getting this goddamn pants so you may as well just come to the show for chrissakes.

Kyle Kinane is on at The Victoria Hotel

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2014/season/shows/kyle-kinane