Merv Collins
The Pun 2012 Reviews »
I loved A Sunburnt History,
A story mad but true,
Of Wills and Burke and dozens more
And a cast of only two!
This is history like you wish they’d taught it at high school. Charlie Ranger and Nicholas Waxman have done the research and tell the story of the disastrous south/north continental expedition with great gusto. The amazing facts come out while the terrifying ineptitude of most concerned is exposed and ridiculed.
The two men play multiple parts, switching at the end of a sentence from one (sometimes quite dubious) accent to another. I …
The Pun 2012 Reviews »
It takes a fair amount of guts, I’d have thought, to mount your own stand-up hour at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. So it’s a surprise to hear bespectacled Ryan Walker (he’s ‘not in IT, he’s just shit at seeing’) confess to low self-esteem and a lack of confidence.
It all started in high school and now he’s invited to his ten year reunion. Should he return and face his demons; the boys who made his life a nightmare and the girls he lusted for but never dared approach?
He tells stories …
The Pun 2012 Reviews »
Sophie Miller’s got a lot going for her: she sings well, plays good piano and isn’t hard to look at for the brief duration of her musical Festival gig at the ‘off-Broadway’ venue way up Swanston St.
You only have to hear her play a few bars to know she has keyboard skills; I read somewhere that she’s classically trained. I believe it.
She accompanies herself through several songs of unfulfilling romance in the city office where she ‘daylights’ waiting for the big break. She told us about sad, vertically-challenged George and …
Featured, The Pun 2012 Reviews »
We could have been on a pebbly beach just under the pier somewhere along the English coast. The Punch and Judy booth was authentic enough to bring back my childhood memories and an expectant sparkle to the eye of my 6 year old offsider.
Mr. Punch was his traditional wicked self, fulfilling puppeteer Ken Harper’s warning to his over-excited audience that there’d be ‘lots of whacking.’ What fun it was as the rascally rogue bounced the baby down the stairs and whacked a succession of law-abiding citizens to oblivion. He copped …
The Pun 2012 Reviews »
I like a good Irish comedian and, one day, Alan McElroy might be one.
I went along to his forced stand-up gig – well, that’s what I thought he said – turns out to be his first gig. His wife of five weeks is a Norse, too; nah, she’s not from Sweden – works in a hospital.
‘Annyway,’ as he pronounces it, he’s a friendly, energetic bloke from Dublin living in New Zealand. His style is Jason Byrne-delivery and level of excitement – fast and frantic.
He works hard, perspires and chunters on. …
Featured, The Pun 2012 Reviews »
Do you know the Pony Bar in Little Collins St? Not the most auspicious of venues for a night at the Festival; heavy metal bar, tatty red and black décor, skeleton of a horse painted on the wall and big speakers grinding out music to usher in Armageddon.
There to witness Andrew O’Neill, vegan, transvestite, H.M. comedian. Not my usual fare; seat near the door to facilitate an early exit if required!
But life springs its surprises. O’Neill is a personable young man notwithstanding his tatts, red lippy, frilly miniskirt and ‘beautiful …
The Pun 2011 Reviews »
51-year-old Greg Proops from San Francisco doesn’t do the annual international comedy circuit and hasn’t been to Melbourne for 14 years. He doesn’t need to: he’s a TV regular, having had a successful career in both the U.S. and U.K. versions of Whose Line is it Anyway? and now having a role in a U.S. sitcom amongst other work.
This experience and expertise is on display in his stand-up routine at the Athenaeum. His manner is brisk and the words tumble out in a waterfall of clever verbosity: I never expected to …
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