Flo & Joan – Squirrel Comedy

MICF shows we’ve already seen and recommendations.

As the Melbourne Internation Comedy Festival approaches and you are considering what shows to pop on your spreadsheet this year, we have some recomendations and shows we’ve previously reviewed to help you make your decisions. Some shows, for example those at The Butterfly Club begin as early as Tuesday 25th of March, the festival ends on Sunday April 20th. There are many shows that don’t start til a bit later, the 7th or 15th of April, and some are having very short runs, so keep an eye out.

First I will recommend some artists that have piqued my interest for various reasons. There are MANY brilliant shows and I will discover more interesting things as we go along, but these will do for now, or we’ll be here all day!

Recommendations:

One of the most charming monthly podcasts to emerge in the past couple of years is From The Hideout with three generations of Australian showbiz hanging out and making us and each other laugh. Pete Smith (85), famous for his voice over work on Channel 9 has many nostalgic stories to tell about working with Don Lane, Graham Kennedy and Bert Newton and co from the beginning of television in the 1960s and radio work. Tony Martin (60), ex Aotearoan/New Zealander famous from The Late Show in the early 1990s and his groundbreaking radio work on Martin Malloy and Get This. And finally Djovan Caro (35), more famous as Luis from the award winning Lessons with Luis and shows on Channel 31 including Famous with Luis, Catcam and Fishcam in the 2010s (these can all be found on Youtube featuring a cavalcade of other Australian comedians). Anyway these three friends are bringing their delightful podcast From The Hideout – Live! to the civilised time of 3pm on Saturday and Sunday of the first weekend of the comedy festival. I’ll be at both!

My Favourite show from last year was Flo & Joan’s One Man Musical (starring George Fouracres as a very famous writer of Westend musicals). We cannot name the subject of this musical, but if you have seen musicals about cats and things and maybe not loved them, this is the show for you. It is a pretty vicious and hilarious satire on the delicate genius. It’s a masterpiece, don’t miss it.

Elf Lyons Horses was another show we gave 5 nuts to. Performed by a “horse”, it’s won many awards such as Best Show and Spirit of the Fringe at the Edinburgh Fringe 2024 and Best Comedy Award at Adelaide Fringe 2024 and has received many rave reviews. I am looking forward to finally seeing this.

Free from his radio responsibilities Sammy J is ready to get back to his first love of performing live. In The Kangaroo Effect Sammy J will have a big story to tell, no doubt, which begins with accidentally wearing a costume to a party that wasn’t a costume party. Sammy J is a born showman who knows how to put on a stunning show. There’ll be new songs and lots of laughs. He also has a new album of old songs to look out for.

Go see Guy Montgomery, one of the best of the new wave of Aoteoroan/New Zealand comedians, who has certainly got the funniest show on Australian TV last year (I was in tears every week) Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont-Spelling Bee It’s a massive venue and slightly different to the TV version, but you will have a ball. Go see his solo stand up too, I’ve Noticed So Many Things, It’d Be Unfair To Keep Them To Myself. He’s very funny.

Rhys Darby, one of the original wave of Aotearoan/New Zealand comedians to break through at the beginning of this century (Most notably as Murray in the radio and TV series Flight of the Conchords), has returned to Australia with a new live show The Legend Returns after eight years of concentrating on TV and film work, Such as the Jumanji films, the sublime Uproar (my fave film of 2023) and as Gentleman pirate Stede Bonnet,(who’s love interest is Blackbeard) in the hilarious and heart achingly romantic queer pirate comedy Our Flag Means Death. Rhys’s standup comedy style is storytelling involving a lot of physical comedy and impressions of things such as robots. This year, the famously cheerful and non political comedian, is tackling the very real threat of robots to humanity head on.

El Salvedorian/American Julio Torres is an absurdist comedian, who writes for Saturday Night Live and also created the HBO series Fantasmas. He is bringing both his solo show Color Theories and a special one-off viewing of his movie Problemista staring Tilda Swinton, Greta Lee and the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA

Previously reviewed shows:

We recommend All of them!

Elf Lyons – Horses

Here’s Ron’s Review from Edinburgh Fringe 2024

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/browse-shows/elf-lyons-horses/

Flo & Joan starring George Fouracres – One Man Musical

Here’s Lisa’s review from Edinburgh Fringe 2024

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/browse-shows/one-man-musical/

Jake & Liv – We Forgive You, Patina Pataznik

Here’s Colin’s review from Edinburgh Fringe 2024

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/browse-shows/we-forgive-you-patina-pataznik/

Julian O’Shea – M is for Melbourne: The World’s Mostly* Liveable City

Here’s Colin’s review from MICF 2024

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/browse-shows/m-is-for-melbourne-the-world-s-mostly-liveable-city/

Olga Koch Comes From Money

Here’s Ron’s review from Edinburgh Fringe 2024

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/browse-shows/olga-koch-comes-from-money/

The Late Nite PowerPoint Comedy Showcase

Here’s Colin’s review from Edinburgh Fringe 2024

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/browse-shows/the-late-nite-powerpoint-comedy-showcase/

One Man Musical by Flo & Joan

By Lisa Clark

Flo & Joan have written an absolute stunner of a musical, fit for Broadway, or perhaps Off-Broadway, as it satirises Broadway’s biggest Superstar in the most exquisite way. A person not named in any of the promotion for this show. I gasped when it was revealed and knew I was in for a fabulous time but it surpassed my expectations.

It’s very difficult to write a review without naming it’s subject, the cat is pretty much out of the bag now, but I will try. The musical is a satire of a specific musical composer. Lets just say that one of the songs is called something like Pussy Palace. When the audience was asked if anyone had not heard of him, not a single hand was raised so you may know him but perhaps not know the fine details. Don’t worry, this show will gleefully fill you in.

George Fouracres is an astonishing performer, who embodies the powerful, single-minded egotist with an enormous amount of energy and an expressive, comical face. It’s not surprising that he is a good actor, as he’s usually to be found at Shakespeare’s Globe giving Hamlet or somesuch by the Bard. His singing is delightful and reflects the character perfectly, his voice has an astonishing range and he seems to play with every nuance he can get out of it. The patter songs in particular would give Hamilton a run for it’s money with speedy lyrics flying out at an express rate. He sings the whole musical himself with only concessional harmonies and back up by Flo & Joan.

So though it is a one-man musical, it was a joy to find that the composers Flo & Joan are on stage throughout, playing live the music of the night. I am a becoming a big fan of theirs and their live input turns out to be important to the piece. There is a vibe of quietly judging Goddesses about them and also some interaction with the star, questioning his life choices. The best moment was when the girls, who are very straight faced throughout, could barely contain their laughter as George did some hilarious improvisation while interacting with the audience and especially during a costume malfunction.

From the get go our One-Man is portrayed as a condescending narcissist, the enthusiastic opening song is “It’s all about ME!!”, so although the show appears to give the character warmth, admiration and sympathy at times, we don’t cry for him, knowing that underneath is absolute contempt that becomes searingly vicious satire, despite the demeanour of our two calm, sweet looking composers up the back. Flo and Joan also use their character to poke a little fun back at themselves. Female comedians can’t seem to help but be a bit self-deprecatory, but it gets a laugh and softens things somewhat, just as they get quite dark.

I’m not sure about the names of the songs because, unlike our protagonist, Flo & Joan have not pre-released a soundtrack, but many are toe-taping, hand-clapping bangers. The excellent overture pre recorded as housemusic by the girls themselves is one that I really hope they do release. The songs are such hilarious fun. It’s always exciting to walk out of a show with audience members exclaiming “That was Brilliant!” and “It was absolutely hilarious!” excitedly to each other, I reckon Flo & Joan have got a technicolour hit on their hands.

One Man Musical by Flo & Joan is on at Pleasance Dome until August 25

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/one-man-musical-by-flo-joan

Flo & Joan Alive On Stage

By Lisa Clark

It’s always wonderful to discover a new comedy act to become a fan of and Flo & Joan blew me away with their astonishing, hilarious musical comedy.

Flo & Joan don’t do a lot of banter between songs. These are fairly formal proceedings. We don’t find out much about them or their relationship apart from the fact that they are sisters and that they are not really named Flo & Joan. They are Nicola and Rosie Dempsey and use stage names taken from their grandmother and her sister. The show is made up of very funny songs that are broken up by reading out real, on-line comments they’ve received and giving their responses, that occasionally reveal a bit more about their individual personalities and a hint at sibling rivalry.

Their musical comedy style is very English, I would describe them as daughters of Noel Coward and Victoria Wood. They are very deadpan in their approach and don’t do a lot of in between song banter or off the cuff chat but are still delightful to watch live. The songs are very tightly and densely written with clever and witty lyrics filled with jokes and surprises. Some are about current events, such as companies who patronise women by creating a ‘female’ version of their product, or common experiences such as having a bit too much to drink, and, having had some dreadful troll experiences online, they have written a super duper of a response to top them all. The real crowd-pleaser is their gift for patter songs in this case “Carol the Cracker Packer”.

I heard about Flo & Joan a couple of years ago and put them on my list of must see shows for this year, then was very impressed when I saw them do a couple of songs at the MICF Launch. It made me very excited that I was going to see them and they didn’t let me down. Neither of those songs were in the show, so there were no spoilers, but those songs were certainly a strong indicator of their talent and style. It also attests to the large repertoire they’ve built up. They have 2 albums for sale.

Discovering Flo & Joan has become the highlight of the festival for me so far. If you are big fans of smart, topical, musical comedy, rush out and see them before their shows become as expensive as Tim Minchin!

Flo & Joan are Alive On Stage at The Melbourne Town Hall til Apr 21

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2019/shows/flo-and-joan