Chris Wenn
The Pun 2010 Reviews »
The Sandz and Hopper Show is hidden away in a tiny room in Trades Hall, where the endearingly glum Lou Sanz and cheerfully madcap Claire Hooper are given free rein to construct a whole world for their small audience. This comedy show about making a comedy show riffs happily on the contrasting personae of these two accomplished comics – Hooper’s gangling antics marvellously offset by the subtlety of Sanz’ rolled eye or quirk of the lip – but never gets bogged down in theatricality. Instead, the audience is treated to …
The Pun 2010 Reviews »
If whimsy is the new undercurrent of comedy, what are we to make of Tim Key, a poet who skewers it so neatly? Key is probably best known to those intrepid users of Bittorrent who have downloaded Newswipe with Charlie Brooker, in which he presented ‘The Topical Poetry of Tim Key’ on subjects as diverse as the UK Parliament’s expenses scandal and the ‘Underpants Bomber’ Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
The Slutcracker is Key’s debut at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and this brief taste of the English comedian/poet’s delirious imagination left this …
The Pun 2010 Reviews »
Opening with the portentous thunder of Carl Orff’s ‘O Fortuna’, Jason Byrne’s show at the Athenaeum pins the audience to their seats as though we’re on a nuclear-powered roller-coaster. The Irish comic’s rapid-fire delivery and genuine engagement with the crowd mean that we’re willing to follow him down the most ludicrous of digressions. His demented, hysterical stream-of-consciousness wanders regularly into territory that’s not safe for work, home, mums (as one delighted but alarmed 19-year-old discovered) or even Byrne himself. In fact, Jason Byrne seems as scandalised by his own routine …
The Pun 2006 Reviews »
What I’ll loosely term ‘humour’ in Trevor Major is…Throbbie Millions is largely derived from the Throbbie Millions character (a cunningly disguised parody of the real Robbie Williams) being an up-himself talentless shit. Technically, it uses the time-honoured tradition of turning pop songs into parodies by turning keywords and phrases into scatological and sexual references, with a wee bit of mocking the disabled. Because everyone knows epilepsy is comedy gold.
The idea of a show based entirely on a Robbie Williams parody runs into trouble almost immediately. The inexplicable Mr. Williams has …
The Pun 2006 Reviews »
Despite a 30 second snatch of the theme music and the name, Family Ties has nothing to do with the late and unlamented sitcom. Instead, it’s an assured, confident and funny exploration of how our family lives shape us. Many comedians use their wacky families as material for stand-up, but Family Ties is refreshing for Nelly Thomas’ clear affection for the members of her family who appear in this character driven show.
Exploring aspects of your own personality on stage can often be a recipe for introspective stand-up that doesn’t engage …
The Pun 2006 Reviews »
I was mentally prepared to cut Goddess Wanted: Must Provide Own Pedestal a break. There’s always a moment in an out of the way show that gives them a fair review, a genuinely funny moment that you can use to salvage something from a show you can muster no enthusiasm for. But when you’re begging for the end and they give you an interval, you lose whatever hope you had.
What.
Ever.
Then they made it worse. See, there’s a rule in the theatre game (and this is theatre, folks. Props, lighting and …
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