Mel is a relief teacher, substituting at some of the roughest schools in Brisbane. Students have been to her gigs, too, although she doesn’t let it affect her performance. “It’s more awkward for them, not me. One of them has come up to me after the show and hugged me and still called me Miss Buttle. It’s fun – when they see me perform they get to see the real me.” She also refuses to let their presence change her material, much of which is about the schools she has worked in. “I find they don’t mind me mentioning the schools, as people just love a mention. I could stand there and say, ‘My mum has the biggest beard and she really needs to shave it all off’, and all she would hear is ‘Oh! That’s me! She’s mentioning me on stage!’”

Like all the best comedians, Mel has run into some trouble with hecklers, particularly female audience members who sometimes have issues with the languages in her shows. “Look, it’s just mainly when I do hen’s nights,” she says. “Mother and Aunty Joan are often invited along and while they have no problem with wearing penis shaped name tags, they can have a problem with my language.” Is it enough to put her off comedy? “I don’t let it affect me much. Comedy comes with both the highest highs and lowest lows. After five Chardonnays, heckles can happen. It’s all part of the gig.”

Of her debut show, Sista Got Flow, Mel says “It’s basically all about me. Surprise! How original”. Not just her ‘wacky adventures’ are discussed in her show, however, delicate and intimate topics are discussed as well, such as her virginity. When asked if she has ever had any regrets about integrating her stage and personal lives so closely, she is quick to reply: “Definitely not. Comedy should be truthful, like a dinner party with friends. All the comedians I like use really honest and truthful material. Honest material is the best and funniest comedy.” But discussing such intimate things with a room of strangers has to be daunting, doesn’t it? “I believe it to be really important to be intimate with the audience,” is her honest reply.

Sista Got Flow has been in the making since December of 2008. Mel began to put some stories with other bits of material, and found she had a ’sort of show’ forming. After spending all of last year open mic-ing around Brisbane to polish the material, she is now excited to take on the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. “I’m excited to be involved; see shows and perform shows, go to the HiFi Bar. I’ve only ever been to the festival to watch shows before. The festival is really just like Christmas for comedians. You know, you’re just walking around Melbourne and you suddenly go, ‘Oh My God! I think that’s Wil Anderson buying a curry!’”

As an industry, though she is regarded as relatively new, she has already experienced the help and support of many a comedian. As Mel states, “There’s quite a ‘we’re all in the trenches together’ mentality between comedians”, and stresses that there is definitely more of a supportive, rather than competitive, feel in the industry. She is quick to endorse other comedians as well, having already made plans to see Josie Long, Sarah Millican, Russell Kane, Tom Ballard and Fiona O’Loughlin perform at the festival.

A Twitter enthusiast, I ask Mel if she ever uses the social networking site to try out stand-up material (in under 140 characters, of course). Rather than using Twitter to trial material, though, she uses it as somewhat of a training tool. “On trains, instead of listening to music, I’ll be on Twitter trying to think of jokes. Whenever I watch something like The Circle, I will make an effort to think of a related joke and Tweet it, for instance. I use it as a way of keeping sharp.”

As Mel performs Sista Got Flow throughout this year’s festival, you can expect major laughs and raw, honest material from a talented and Twitterific new voice.

Sometimes this work in isolation can result in doubling up; this year a trio of subversive political stand-ups led by Courteney Hocking are The First Three Against the Wall, while Karin Muiznieks’ new revolutionary-themed cabaret is First Against the Wall. Two very different shows with almost the same title – and yet it suits them both. In this case no-one’s likely to get confused, but we’re all trying to stand out from the crowd. Here are some of the strategies we commonly employ.

The Jokes Start Here – make the show’s title funny. No mean feat, and the lack of space leads to lots of puns, as explored previously by The Pun. That’s not the only option, though; titles like Please Don’t Use My Flannel For That (Lou Sanz), Advice You Shouldn’t Need (Matt Elsbury) and Ants Don’t Sleep (Laura Davis) all amuse but each promises a different kind of funny.

First In, Best Dressed – location, location, location. Comedy fans flip through all 20 pages of shows, but the average punter gets thumb fatigue after half a dozen, and someone has to be first in the A-Z. (This year it’s me, though honestly +1 Sword belongs in the next category.) This grab for the top can lead to seeming random titles like Aardvarks Anonymous or grammatical oddities like 2010 Vote Barnesy For President.

It’s A Show About X – what are you talking about? Easy for shows about particular subjects, and vital: aficionados of “X” are a niche market you need to reach. This can be a trap, though; if The Bicycle Collector only features five minutes about Uncle Trevor’s “collection” of two old tandems, some punters will be disappointed. This year I think Code Grey: Adventures in Public Health (Adrian Calear) and To Sir With Glove?! (Dean Arcuri’s S&M cabaret scores extra points for including a pun) will stay on-topic. Karin Muiznieks’ above-mentioned cabaret fits in here, since it’s about starting a revolution.

You Know What I’m About – show off your style. A variation on the above, more about theme or tone than subject matter. A Breathtakingly Magical Journey into the Ordinary leaves you in little doubt about the kind of enthusiastic whimsical absurdity you can expect from Bart Freebairn, while Shut Up and Sing sets the tone nicely for Geraldine Quinn (i.e. angry and musical). Likewise, there’s no confusion about the content and tone of Gooks & Wogs 2: The Return of the Choco and the Chink. First Three Against the Wall is one of these, since the title communicates their style: subversive political satire.

It Does What It Says On The Tin – it doesn’t hurt to be literal. The title can also be a description. I’m guilty of this one, with the unimaginative Melbourne Museum Comedy Tour, but it’s not limited to special event type shows; my favourite in this category this year is absolutely Pretending Things Are Cocks. I know, I know; you want to see it now too.

Sequels – if it ain’t broke… If the title worked last year, don’t correct it’s grammar, just stick “Again” or “2” on the end. That’s how we get Six More Impossible Things Before Breakfast (Philip Escoffey) and Fear of a Brown Planet Returns. Variations on a theme are also possible, for example Asher Treleaven’s previous festival shows; Cellar Door, Open Door and now this year’s Secret Door.

Cheeky – get attention however you can. We’d all love to be able to write “Sold Out” or “Award Winner” on our posters…so why not make that the name of the show? Halley Metcalfe’s Five Stars is the cheekiest real world example, but I know a few groups who’ve discussed titling a show “(UK)” in the cynical belief that it would quadruple ticket sales.

WTF? – weird shows should have weird names. Absurdist Sam Simmons (with previous shows Where Can I Win A Bear Around Here?, Tales of the Erotic Cat) and anti-comedian Nick Sun (Blood on the Yolks in the Key of Owls) are masters of this, but the challenger for a brief shining moment was Peter Morley with 2008’s What Up Fags, I Gots No Material, lol and 2009’s frankly confusing Didn’t A Comedy Show (Or That Toilet Thing Either). This year Anyone For Tennis? have shot to the top of the WTF charts with Abacus Birdcage Gramophone Lamp.

Who Cares? – let the name do the talking. Let’s be honest: do you really care what Tim Minchin, Ross Noble or Adam Hills are calling their show this year? That’s why the guide allows you to put your name in front of the show title, so people can look up Arj Barker under “A”. Wil Anderson could give up the puns and it wouldn’t matter – his audience would still show up. Though on reflection, I do wonder if he spells “Wil” with only one L in order appear first in the list of Wills and Williams…

So pay attention to the titles you see as you flick through the comedy guide.  It’s one of the simplest ways to gauge what you’re in for if you buy a ticket to the show, and is often a great indicator of the tone you can expect.  The performers might not have known exactly what their show was going to look like when they selected the name, but they did use their individual style to decide on a title.

A. Actually, women aren’t really that funny..

It’s the laughable line that gets trotted out every Comedy Festival.

Delivered in didactic terms in queues for Wil Anderson, spluttered by seedy types holding up the Festival bars, whispered guiltily as those few ladies who actually get a guernsey at the Gala take the stage.

The standard “Sheilas can’t crack a joke”, the occasional “Kristen Schaal is the exception that proves the rule”, and of course “Oh yeah, then why is there twice the number of blokes in comedy as chicks, huh?”

The logic is dubious, to say the least. But this year, the solution is simple, sassy, and kicks off the Comedy Festival. Keep Your Skirt On is a cherry-picked evening featuring the female, and the funniest, of the species.

Wednesday’s one-off event, at the terribly proper Order of Melbourne, boasts a 15-lady line up, and is hosted by GNW representative Claire Hooper and scene stalwart Geraldine Hickey. Add award-winners like Celia Pacquola and Geraldine Quinn, with fresh-faced Raw Comedy funny girls, and you’ve really got every type of comedy covered.

Hickey describes Keep Your Skirt On as “the best possible way you can start the Festival”.

Enthusiastic terms from a lady who says her own stand-up show Hammer & Tong is essentially “me and a microphone, telling dick jokes”. But the matter-of-fact comedienne, who’s used to being told she’s “pretty funny for a girl”, says the charm of Keep Your Skirt On is found in the ladies behind the scenes.

The event is produced by the Skirt Network, an alliance of female comedians, and founded by Melbourne funny girls Celia Pacquola and Lou Sanz. And a few casual drinks turned into what sounds suspiciously like Girl Power.

“For girls in comedy, there’s Jeez Louise (an annual chin-wag for female comedians), there’s Upfront (the Town Hall headliner girls’ gala), and there was never anything in between,” Hickey says.

“You start doing Jeez Louise, and it’s so supportive that you’re in a world of comfy cushions – move on to a stand-up show, and it’s more brutal, it can really scare off good comedians.”

Hickey says that girls on the scene have always given each other a lot of support, but the Network helps beginners know where to start.

“Skirt Network is only really formalising something that’s been around for years – women like Judith Lucy, Scotty (Denise Scott), they paved the way and got so much success,” Hickey says.

“It was always an unsaid thing, that of course girls would support each other – it’s just now, we’ve got a Facebook group!”

So the Network provides all the comfort of, well, a skirt.. but one of those super-hot skirts that curves in all the right places.

The inaugural Keep Your Skirt On shimmied into Trades last year, and it went “pretty damn well”, says this year’s producer Kelly McConville.

The sell-out event picked up the Pun’s Show of 2009 Award, and this the line-up has diversified towards the spectacular. It’s the benefit of the Order of Melbourne, says Hickey, “There’s going to be a trapeze swinging somewhere.”

Enter Anna “Pocket Rocket” Lumb, acrobat, trapeze artist, hula hooper. The puckish performer is gearing up for her second MICF, and says events like Keep Your Skirt On make the transition from “carney” to comedian an easy one.

The mission to find her inner clown has been “intuitive.. and I’m inspired by things in my own life, things that are funny!”

For Lumb, that’s the charm of so many of the ladies on the comedy circuit – they’re prepared to be so honest, and to put so much of themselves into their shows.

“Add the pull of variety, and all that fun sassy stuff, and that’s exciting! It’s a bit more approachable, a bit more intimate, and it offers a bit of bite!”

So who seeks out an all-lady comedy extravaganza? McConville is prepared to be honest about the crowds, too.

“Well, they were good looking last year!” McConville recalls.

In fact, if anything characterises them, McConville says it’s probably the fact the crowd is in its element. “Audience participation is definitely the pace – the crowd are a bit like the performers, pretty much up for anything.”

Skirts optional.

****

Hosts: Claire Hooper & Geraldine Hickey

Tegan Higginbotham

Celia Pacquola

Anna Lumb

Karin Muizneiks

Geraldine Quinn

Claudia O’Doherty

Kelly Fastuca

Wes Snelling

Telia Nevile

Linda Beatty

Sarah Bennetto

Halley Metcalfe

Melinda Buttle

Felcity Ward

Keep Your Skirt On

Wednesday, March 24

The Order of Melbourne

Purchase tickets at the door or online via Ticketmaster.

Rod Quantock – In the Beginning

Fancy a walk down memory lane?  You can, quite literally, do just this with Mr Quantock this year as he strolls through Melbourne’s streets visiting the historical sites and stories of comedy in our hometown.

Melbourne Museum Comedy Tour

Ben McKenzie has done us all a favour, bringing back one of last year’s sell-out comedy offerings for another year.  If you like your comedy with a smidge of “I never knew that!”, this tour will satisfy.  With comics such as Andy Muirhead and DeAnne Smith on offer, we highly recommend booking early for this one.

The Powder Room Podcast

Desperate to fit more comedy in your day?  Em O’Loughlin and Wendy Little are pleased to provide the convenience of listen-at-your-leisure podcast comedy.  New episodes are available every Friday, all you need to do is subscribe for free via iTunes.

Circus Trick Tease

If being twice nominated for people’s choice awards is anything to go by, this blend of circus and comedy is doing something very right.

Celebrity Theatresports

Every year this fast-paced bundle of fun takes over the festival for one night only, providing unscripted and unprepared comedy.  The show where impro maestros take on celebrity guests in a comedy battle royale.

And the sneaky extra we just couldn’t resist…

The Ultimate Board Game – Unscripted

After some notable evenings with their previous MICF offering, Scrabble Unscripted, the Impro Australia team return this year to tackle every board game ever made.  Personally, we can’t wait to see their take on Hungry Hungry Hippos.

A man after our own heart, Tim Vine prides himself on keeping the art of the pun alive. Not just a pun-tastic title, this show promises (or threatens) to offer the most puns-per-show ratio of the festival.

Wil Anderson: Wilful Misconduct

Ever year we open the festival guide to see what truly terrible name-based pun Anderson has gone with this time around. Not one to disappoint, this year it is Wilful Misconduct.

Dean Arcuri – To Sir with Glove ?!

What else would you call a show about fetishism? Enough said.

Peter Berner in Binge Thinker

Yup, now that’s a title we can get behind. Pure pun.

The Polar Bearings – Songs in the Sea, Major?

Not content with a pun title, this duo have actually given themselves a pun name. And the two puns compliment each other. Solid gold.

Keep Your Skirt On

Yes, yes, we’re biased.  We awarded the inaugural Keep Your Skirt On show of 2009 our Professional Development Award.  Their first year was a veritable treasure-trove of talented women, and it’s shaping up to be just as impressive this year.  A fine way to kick off your festival (and check out some short sets that will help you decide whose full show you should spend your hard earned cash on later in the month), Keep Your Skirt On features a stellar line-up of ladies to make you laugh.  The perfect teaser, you can expect an hour and a half of great comedy for only $20.

Sarah Millican

Between her poster, featuring Millican as feminist icon Rosie the riviter, and her 2009 Barry Award Nominee status, this is a show we just had to include in our Top 5.  Returning to the festival this year with her offering Typical Woman, Millican offers you the chance to catch her if you were crazy enough to miss her last year.

NGV Comedy Tour with Hannah Gadsby

While catching Gadsby for her regular comedy shows is a great night out, her very popular NGV Comedy Tour is an unusual treat.  Selling out in no time last year, you’ll have to get your skates on to make it to this year’s repeat but by all accounts its well worth the effort.  Wander the halls of the NGV and enjoy this unique event blending comedy and art like you won’t find any other night of the year.

Geraldine Hickey

This local lady returns for what is sure to be another impressive show.  Hickey should not be underestimated, having delivered stand-out solo shows at MICF over a number of years.  This year’s offering is directed by fellow Melbournian Celia Pacquola (another good female comic to check out this year if you haven’t already) and we’re looking forward to it.

Upfront 2010

Another group show offering plenty of opportunity to spy a new favourite, Upfront is back for its fifteenth year.  From big-name internationals like Nina Conti to hometown favourites such as Kitty Flanagan this show has something to keep your sides aching.

The festival website is up and running, ready for you to check out your favourite performers and search for some new talent.  Take a look, start to plan your comedy schedule and buy your tickets before you miss out!  In the meantime, we’ll be keeping an ear to the ground, listening to all the gossip from Adelaide Fringe Festival and around the traps on what’s shaping up to be worth a look for MICF.

Keep in the loop by subscribing to our email list or following us on twitter.  Subscribing will give you access to our ticket giveaways and discounts along with all our usual reviews, interviews and news.

The Barry Awards – 2009 Nominees

Tim Minchin (AUS) – Ready For This?

Rich Hall (USA) – Otis Lee Crenshaw Featuring Special Guest Rich Hall

Wilson Dixon (AUS) – Wilson Dixon Rides Again

Sarah Millican (UK) – Sarah Millican’s Not Nice

Asher Treleaven (AUS) – Open Door (Moosehead Award Recipient)

The Pajama Men (USA) – Versus vs Versus

Henning Wehn & Otto Kuhnle (DEU) – 1000 Years of German Humour

The Golden Gibbo – 2009 Nominees

Heath McIvor – Randy’s Postcards from Purgatory

Rob Hunter – Moosecow

Tale of the Golden Lease – Vigilantelope

The List Operators – The Last Tuesday Society

Tom Ballad – Is What He Is

Wes Snelling – Kiosk

Raw Comedy Winner

The top prize was awarded to Michael Workman of Western Australia. Michael won a trip to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to compete in the prestigious competition ‘So You Think You’re Funny’.  There were two ‘Runners Up’, awarded to bee keeper, jam maker and actor Charles Barrington – also known as Andy Rodger, a 27-year-old baker originally from Mildura, Victoria; and Ash Walmsley, a 28-year-old newspaper editor from Bundaberg, Queensland. The ‘Raw Recruit’ prize for the best first time entrant went to 27-year-old Don Tran of Victoria.

Deadly Funny Winner

After being runner-up the past two years, Shiralee Hood, of Nyoongar Kurnai community (Perth/Gippsland), was crowned champion.  Second place went to Ingo Collard from Western Australia, whilst Aaron Lester from South Australia came third. Phil Saunders from South Australia received an honourable mention.

The Funny Tonne

And the status of the funny tonne?  At last update in their race to beat Funny Tonne Champ Erin Davidson (2006) who sits undefeated on 123 shows, here’s how they were placed:

Joseph Crichton – 100 shows
Kristy Lillyst – 97 shows
Jessica Chi – 80 shows

Hope to see you all at Trades Hall this Sunday night for their awards night, including our two awards from The Pun!

I may be a ‘just in’ Generation Xer, but for me the abbreviation LOL has always meant ‘laugh out loud’. I don’t recall using many abbreviations on paper (maybe RSVP or RTS) so I never encountered LOL until I started using the Internet in about 1995. (Yes, 1995 – I’m not writing a column with geek in the title without some qualification.) Like most of that ilk of abbreviations, it predates SMS and instead originated with Internet Relay Chat (IRC), which is the grandmother of MSN Messenger et al.

Imagine my surprise when I learned during a stand-up show that for some older Generation Xers, there was a time when LOL meant ‘lots of love’ – and I’m sure you can imagine what kind of delightful joke arose from the ensuing confusion. The thing is, so did two different comedians – one from the UK and the other a local stalwart. They both wrote the same joke. Not in as many words, of course, and one used it as an aside while the other developed a short routine around it, but still – the same joke. Both were good.

So here comes the sticky question: who ‘owns’ the joke? There’s no question of joke theft – two people have just written the same joke. I preferred one, but perhaps that was just because I’d seen it first – I might have felt a different way if I’d seen them in the reverse order. If we were talking about music, it would be easy to determine who had published or recorded first, but there’s no such easy mark with comedy. Even if there were, how do you decide what’s so close as to constitute a ‘problem’? As part of their grand finale, the Axis of Awesome ably demonstrate that lots of popular music uses the same basic structure, but hardly any of it is specifically similar enough to warrant law suits or copyright claims.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting someone has to abandon the joke. There’s no real dispute. Given the two comedians involved – they have very different styles, themes and timeslots, let alone target audiences – I’d be surprised if even twenty other people had heard both versions.  But surely this can’t be the only time this has happened.

Have you had joke deja vu this festival? Let me know – but please, don’t give away any punch lines!

1. Denise Scott – Number 26

Sit back, relax and put your metaphoric comfy nightie on so you can join Scott in her jaunt down memory lane.  Part stand-up, part storytelling with a dash of showbiz thrown in, this show is one you’ll remember long after you’ve rushed off to the next gig.

2. Wilson Dixon Rides Again

If you haven’t seen a Wilson Dixon show before, you’ll want to give this one a crack.  Not just because of the recent Barry Award nomination, which usually signals a good show, but because this uniquely drawn charachter has a way of sneaking up on you.  The music is good, the premise is good, the story is good.  This cowboy philosopher is more than just a charicature, which makes for a great show.

3. The List Operators

Addicted to making lists?  This show is perfect for you.  Fresh from their award winning season (and sold-out) season at Melbourne Fringe Festival, this duo will keep you laughing for a full hour… and what better than to make our Top 5 list than, well, a show about lists.

4. Tale of the Golden Lease

Read our review for a glowing recommendation to see this show, or just take my word for the fact that these lads are performing sketch comedy at its finest.

5. Justin Hamilton – Goodbye Ruby Tuesday

Combine one talented comedian and one talented actor and you get Goodbye Ruby Tuesday.  An hour long story about little-girl-lost, Ruby, and her rather strange friendship with local comic Jason.  There are smatterings of stand-up, a beguiling story and endearing, well drawn charachters.  Well worth a look.

As Dave Hughes discusses in a recent article in The Age, often a less-than-positive review will stick with a performer for a very long time.  This is also apparent when listening to one of Tim Minchin’s new songs from this year’s show, which he dedicates to a bad review he received three years ago.  Yes, three.  On one hand, this is very understandable.  Anyone, no matter how confident, is bound to dislike hearing how under-appreciated their creative work is.  Having somebody cast a critical eye over your performance and pick every flaw, magnify every bumble and sit in judgement of your talents would surely be difficult to accept.  It would lead you to question who this person was, to sit in judgement of your work.  Some say, “If you can’t do, teach”… other say “if you can’t do, review”.  Given the frequency with which some comedy reviewers cross over to performing comedy here in Melbourne it can be easy to see where the saying comes from.

On the other hand, reviewing is a key factor in the publicity-factory for festivals.  A good review can make or break a show, can assist in building an audience, can elevate an unheard of name to a show with remarkable buzz around it.  Audiences read reviews to get some idea what a show is like.  The festival program offers few words, written by performers themselves, and perhaps a short quote from a previous review.  It can be hard, from this tiny bit of information, to judge you should spend your hard earned cash on one show or another.  And should you judge a show by its poster?  Should you look at the advertisements on television, in newspapers?  Do they really give you any idea what to expect?  Like it or not, reading someone else’s experience of a given show is likely to offer more of an idea about what will take place after you buy your ticket than anything else.

On one side of the fence, comics who have been burned by a bad review can often be found defensively spouting that reviewers are out to get them, want to give bad reviews, get off on destroying shows, don’t know anything about comedy in the first place, don’t represent ‘real’ audiences or are frustrated performers themselves.  On the other side of the fence, reviewers will point out that they are unwilling to let poor performances go unchecked, save audiences from wasting money on sub-standard shows, comics can’t take criticism, it’s not their job to keep shows happy, they have a duty to be honest about a show’s faults.  They are courted, and then derided if their review finds even the smallest criticism.  There is truth on both sides.  And the relationship between reviewer and reviewed is symbiotic.  Without something to review, the reviewer has no purpose.  Without a review, a performer has difficulty getting the word out about their show.  The only potentially unhappy party in the case of a positive review is the reader/audience member, in the case where a reviewer has ‘gone soft’ and not been honest about a poor performance.  They have trusted a reviewer (or publication) to provide them with a fair assessment about a show, and if the show is weak (but the review didn’t make this apparent) they feel let down by both the show and the publication.  Nobody wins.

Particularly in comedy, where the lines between the performer and the character they inhabit on stage can be blurry, or in some cases knife thin, the criticism of a reviewer can strike very close to home.  It is rare to have a vitriolic email in response to a review from an actor, director, film producer, musician or dancer.  It’s almost as if, when reading a review, they can separate the criticism of the performance from the criticism of themselves.  For comics, this appears harder to do.  Many take criticism of their routine, performance, material or presentation as personal.  Some reviewers find it hard to separate performer and performance, but it seems some comics also suffer the same problem.  Sad to say, but often comics respond to criticism with burning outrage.  In many cases, as with the recent example of Dave Hughes, the review itself is far from acerbic.  A small comment or criticism can be interpreted as much harsher than it was probably intended (or as most audiences read it).  Listening to Tim Minchin’s ode to his negative reviewer, it’s hard to understand how his steady climb to international success can leave him time to fixate on three-year-old reviews.  But it does.  Enough to write a biting song in response.

Reviews and reviewers serve different purposes depending on who the reviewer is, what the media outlet is and who the (perceived) readership is.  For us here at The Pun, we have a clear understanding of our aims.  We don’t offer a star-rating system because we have a large team.  Given that we review so many shows (significantly more than any other media outlet), we have a varied team of writers, all of whom have differing opinions and tastes.  When you read reviews from a mainstream media outlet such as The Age you often know the individual reviewer, and will know your tastes are the same as (or different from) theirs.  You know if they’re tough to impress, or if they don’t like musical comedy.  It’s a relationship arts reviewers build with their audience over a long time.  For us, we operate on the theory that a review should help match the right show with the right audience.  A reader should read the review and get a good idea if they would like to see it.  We do not claim, or seek, to rate shows, compare them against each other or to attempt to claim an expertise in the field of comedy.  As an editor, I encourage my writers to offer balanced criticism, to think about who would like (or dislike) the show and write a review which offers a flavour of the show without giving away punch-lines.

Easier said than done, frankly.  As a publication we’re routinely criticised as being too soft, too hard, too alternative in our tastes, too mainstream in our tastes, being skewed towards story/musical/theatre shows, skewed towards stand-up, having no idea about comedy, being too involved in comedy, not covering enough locals, going too soft on locals…. and on and on and on.  There’s no accounting for taste, so the saying goes, and no matter what a reviewer’s taste, there is always somebody else with a different taste.

Paramount for us is not what a comic thinks of their review, though I can think of more than one occasion where I’ve felt horrible publishing what I knew was a fair (but not positive) assessment of a show.  Our job, as a reviewer, is to give audiences an accurate idea of what to expect of a show.  Regardless of how the performer feels.  And while it is true that there are reviewers out there who enjoy nothing more than to sink their teeth into any perceived weakness in a show, or see a show with the attitude that the performer will have to work damn hard to get any positive words from them, for the most part they are rare.  And they certainly don’t work for me.  Most reviewers love live performance, and they write about it because they want to dissect it, discuss it, discover it.  They are looking for the good in a show, not the bad.  Unfortunately, if they don’t acknowledge the bad where it is found, all of the reviewer’s work is useless.  A review only serves its purpose if it is able to enlighten the audience to the good/bad/relevant/salient points of the performance, so they can make their own choice about whether the show is for them.

What a reviewer want and a comic want are actually the same thing.  To get an audience who will enjoy the show to see it.