There is no one in the world doing comedy quite the way Jo Randerson does it. The maverick kiwi performer’s Billy T Award nominated show Jo Randerson’s Skazzle Dazzle entirely defies genre with its addled blend of characterisation, dance, theatre, puppetry and ‘wig-work’. The show’s (extremely loose) narrative typifies Randerson’s highly original and offbeat style: an alien entity is abandoned on earth in an ‘experiment’ and undergoes a series of bizzare transformations in a quest to discover its true identity.
The broad themes of the show explore loneliness, alienation and …

Three performers, one long table and a cavalcade of kitchen utensils. Sound like a stupid idea for a Comedy Festival show? It is, but it works so well.

Men of Steel is an amazing idea, performed perfectly with a great sense of fun and some downright stupidity. Following the adventures of some alien gingerbread cookie cutters landing in a kitchen-world, Men of Steel flips from flying lettuce monsters to the violent murder of an opera singing bag of popcorn, right through to the birth of giant gingerbread men. It’s a performance …

As a well-established Australian comic, Dave Grant owns his stage with an authority that comes from knowing his craft implicitly and his crowd intimately. The bulk of the punters who buy tickets to Dave Grant know what they’re in for: an old-fashioned serve of ‘male’ Aussie humour. This is not to say his line-up is full of dick jokes – far from it – but the material strikes a chord with every bloke who has ever had a VB showdown with his mates.
MAN the MYTH is all about initiation into …

Whilst Jimeoin’s high-profile demands a large venue, there’s always a risk in the Main Town Hall that the dress circle and balcony members will feel like they’re watching from the moon. Comedy always seems to work better in semi intimate venues, especially if there are facial expressions underpinning the jokes. Despite Jimeoin’s charisma, the sheer distance between the stage and the Town Hall’s upper decks leaves an audience member feeling a little uninvolved. It’s a pity because so much of Jimeoin’s material depends on our ability to feel a certain …

The concept behind 160 Characters is highly inventive and fundamentally simple: the audience forwards unusual text messages to a phone number on stage, and the improvisers create funny skits from the incoming texts – sketch SMS, if you will. It’s a great strategy for involving the audience and ensuring the content of the show is diverse and entertaining.
Text messages range from gushy sentimentality (‘I am the coral to your ocean, darling.’) to pointless everyday observations (‘I’m having a sore boob day.’). It’s an excellent formula for improv, which requires random …

The secret to a good joke? It’s all in the context, baby.
If you saw the Easter Monday Short Film Festival screening (plagued by projector issues, disgruntled audience members and rapid exits) you may have been underwhelmed. However, the Awards Night screening was blessed with a sense of pomp and ceremony. Our most convivial host, Brian Nankervis, did a sterling job of warming the crowd up and helping the event flow smoothly (if only he had been at every screening). There was also a sense of Melburnian pride, adding to the …

This woman spent an hour recounting tales of childhood, parenthood and everything in between. She comes from an enormous Irish family and has contributed five of her own children to the mix, which in itself seems to be ample material for a show. O’Loughlin also insists that the audience understands just how thick and lazy she is, through numerous self-deprecating tales that leave the audience both cringing and laughing.
There is a real sense of conversation to this show, as though you’ve just met Fiona at the pub and she’s decided …