Merv Collins
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Who’s a clever girl, then? Well, Karin Muiznieks for one. Remember the name even if you can’t spell it yet!
Muiznieks’ show is built around a political lecture about the class struggle. She has a boardful of cartoons outlining the problems of the world. It may sound a bit ‘Rod Quantock’ but it certainly isn’t. It’s not even a tirade really – it’s an excuse for the songs which are the strength of the show.
Her band (Roland on piano and Emma the multi-instrumentalist) plays the overture till Karin, in gold lame …
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The beauty of the Comedy Festival for me is that its greatest delights are often unexpected: you buy tickets for Jason Byrne, Reginald D. Hunter or Nina Conti and largely, you know what you’re going to get; you buy tickets for first-timers and you takes your chances – sometimes you lose, but sometimes you back a winner.
Take Poet Laureate Telia Nevile for example. Nevile, tall and slim, at first glance seems too timid to impress, but she takes the stage, draws a deep breath and plunges into a slide show …
The Pun 2010, The Pun 2010 Reviews »
Stand up doesn’t get much tougher than a 6 o’clock gig for 20 people in a locker room upstairs at the pub. The irrepressible Jason Pestell takes it on and comes out in front.
Pestell wins his audience with wit and warmth from the beginning, opening enthusiastically, if somewhat predictably, with some Adelaide (his home town) versus Melbourne material. ‘You’ve got the Grand Prix, we’ve got the panda.’ Hey, Jason, here in the big city, we don’t care!
He riffs on – a bit of Twitter patter tuning in to amusing police …
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Tired of the same old same old – ‘Where you from, sir? Ballarat? I spent a week there one day meself!’ Boom, boom! Want something a bit different from well-worn stand-up – a bit of vocal with your verbal? How about the singing half-brothers, Fletcher Jones and Roger David? Where else would you go for your ‘Smart Casual’?
The boys have plenty of smarts alright but nothing very casual. It’s a well-structured hour of clever dialogue, and short nonsense songs with acoustic guitar and taped interludes from the mother they share …
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This could be the easiest and quickest review ever written: do yourself a favour – get a ticket! ‘Nuff said! Sadly, you may already be too late – they sold out on their second night and I’m sure they’ll do it every night.
Dead Cat Bounce is a band of four Irish guys – a ‘rock god’ on lead, perhaps Jason Byrnes’ ginger brother in leopard skin pants on drums, a talented leprechaun on keyboard and a gnarly, hairy bass player who sighs repeatedly that ‘music is his mistress.’ The boys …
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I suspect I used to pass Lorraine’s (Andrea Powell) fading Face and Hair Salon in Reservoir High St. And I’m sure I knew the stolid assistant, Jade, (Geraldine Hickey) at Heidelberg Tech – I recognised the moccasins. It was all confirmed when they found those dodgy cans of International Roast, on which the plot of this ridiculous drama, in the nicest comedy sense, turns, in the Merri Creek. I already felt at home anyway. Auntie Val (Scott Brennan) made sure our seats were comfy and had a nice view – …
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There are two Hunters at the Comedy Festival, as different as chalk and chocolate. One, Reginald D., is big and black, the other, Rob, isn’t. The former oozes onstage confidence, the latter seems caught like a rabbit in spotlight. Reginald D. fills a big room at the top of the Town Hall, Rob fills a small one upstairs at the Portland Hotel, but they do have one thing in common: they both make people laugh.
Rob Hunter’s portentous and ominous introductory voiceover to Moosecow, about the imminent battle between the two …
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Reginald D. Hunter needs no introduction and gets none; he merely strolls onstage and tells us who he is. We know anyway; we saw him sell out his show last year and appear on TV frequently before and since. He is very funny. But more than that, he’s intelligent and confident. Those attributes allow him to say whatever he pleases, motherfucker, to express his opinions and tell bawdy – that’s a euphemism for filthy – stories about himself and his family.
He starts by talking about language itself and inadequacy of …
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The three young women who make up A Lot Of Bread had a popular show at the Melbourne Fringe Festival, and have followed that up with Putting Hats on Ducks, a very imaginative tale of three farmers whose land is taken over by the railroad. The railroad in question is coming through ‘for the barnacles’ – I told you it was imaginative.
The farmers decide to take on the big end of town and finish up having to find three objects, an echidna quill, a turtle shell and Phar Lap’s heart, …
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It’s a while since Lewis Carroll wrote his unlikely comedy festival script about a dreamy young girl falling into a rabbit hole. It still works though, especially for the primary school set when it’s in the hands of the four talented and likable young actors, three girls and a guy, from Sydney’s Tumbleweeds Productions.
Most of Carroll’s old characters are there. A bewildered Alice was already sitting in the stalls when the audience filed in and was quickly joined by the keyboard playing White Rabbit who backed the songs, played incidental …
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Oh my goodness! Lock up the kiddies! Don’t let them anywhere near Freddy Funky Fingers and his Fluffless Followers, a pseudo-Hi-5 gang not politically correct or smart enough to be The Wiggles. The potty mouthed threesome is popular as fairy bread with the under fives, even allowing for their token ‘retard’ (who actually isn’t), and has been offered a role in All Saints which she’s bustin’ to take. The third member, Psychedelic Pete, is high as a kite most of the time and gives ‘checking his lines offstage’ a whole …
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I know this is a pretty early call, like announcing Geelong as Premiers after two matches, but Stephen K Amos could be the funniest bloke at the Comedy Festival – certainly he’d make the final eight.
The opening night audience laughed non-stop through his one hour stand-up routine as he reflected on life, asked impertinent questions and did a devastating ‘Where are you from’? routine. Amos’ manner was impudent and disarming – his eyes and observations sparkled.
The show was introduced by Amos’ ‘father’, in traditional African gown, speaking a native language, …
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Whaddya want from a night out at the Festival? Two girls with big personalities singing witty ditties, a pair of improvising MCs sounding like the Swedish chef’s halfwit brothers, a smooth baritone ‘fessing up about ‘reading Freud with his mother’, a Russian Princess, with a suspect accent, handing out ‘fairbewlous’ prizes, a six foot bellhop mangling the props and a bit of nudity?
Well then, it’s off to The Soubrettes and Friends Variety-a-go-go with you. You’ll find it all there and a bit more!
The Soubrettes, Tania and Alice, dispense songs …
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