The Sexy Detectives – Mono Logs

By Sofia Monkiewicz  

 The Sexy Detectives are a Brisbane comedy sketch group who certainly know how to deliver a successful skit. Their Melbourne Fringe Festival debut Mono Logs is made up of a variety of vignettes, short character interactions, speeches and one-liners, most of which are cleverly written and extremely funny. This type of comedic performance relies on decent material to begin with, and luckily these Sexy Detectives have an abundance of the stuff.

David Massingham and Michael Griffin are natural entertainers; they swap between characters and accents with ease, and their well-timed jokes hit the mark every time. Massingham comes across as the more experienced of the two. He is confident and charismatic, and his characters are all very strong. From the pastor not-so-subtly attempting to stop a couple from getting wed, to a father making plans for which of his children will inherit his fortune, and to a pun-loving school principal, Massingham has the more memorable characters and the funnier skits. Griffin does have some hilarious one-liners though, and his quieter onstage personality combined with Massingham’s expressive antics is a winning combination.

Despite the fact that on this particular night the audience was quite small, it did not prevent the Sexy Detectives from giving it their absolute all; their professionalism and energy is commendable. One particular sound effect-based act they performed was simply hysterical, and an intentionally long-winded sketch about the competencies of an IT help desk was not only highly amusing, but wonderfully witty as well.

In terms of the technical aspect of the show, several of the scene transitions were slightly clunky and there were a couple of messy lighting changes, but overall nothing overly drastic. Perhaps some music between several of the longer scene changes would help to make them a little smoother.

The Melbourne Fringe Festival is designed for shows like Mono Logs. It is an opportunity to showcase something different to the average comedy stand-up routine, and this sketch performance is exactly that: experimental and non-standard, utterly entertaining, and just really stupidly funny.

The Sexy Detectives – Mono Logs is on at Club Voltaire until October 5

http://www.melbournefringe.com.au/fringe-festival/show/the-sexy-detectives-mono-logs/