This years’ festival has shown a lot of young artists embracing online promotion, like Josh Thomas’ site that breeds an animated duck for every new member of his mailing list and like the extensive and well art-directed web presence of Anyone For Tennis? where you can watch shorts, sketches and viral videos filmed by the male duo (Raw Comedy finalists in 2007). Their effective strategy is no surprise because AFT are a creative team straight out of the Advertising world – a world where Cutthroat is based.

To get to the show you enter the opulent, open surrounds of Rosati on Flinders Lane. Descending a set of stairs in the middle of the restaurant, it feels almost like a Michael Gondry film as you discover a mini-venue underneath, with red curtains and guitars symmetrically heralding the on-stage office where we will watch a day in the working life of Jase and Doody.

Musical comedy is currently in fashion so its good to see AFT’s songs are often clever and funny. Seemingly inspired by Flight of the Conchords, their songs include a catalogue of well-structured tunes on the similar theme of love. They don’t fall for the one-verse-too-many trap as often as most, which is why it’s so surprising the narrative material in between the songs is underdone. The 70 minute length was far too long for watching an office space on a Saturday night and the many characters, cues and scenes mean the boys have too much to remember and can be stiff on stage. Coming from advertising, they should know less is more and could speed things up (especially when waiting for audio cues). Greater exaggeration of the dramatic elements would also help, as the cut-throat threats in the story line end up appearing exceptionally tolerant of the boys.

There are new ideas here and they write catchy songs. With some cutting or a patient audience you’ll have a fun night.

Finished reading this article? You might also like:

• Scared Weird Little Guys
• Damian Callinan in Is This Thing On? – The Dave Berry Story
• Alice in Wonderland