On Sunday night, the second
Brisbane Comedy Festival came to a close. I can’t believe how quickly the month had flown by.
As I noted previously, I ended up seeing a lot more shows than I had expected to see. In its inaugural year, I only made it to one (Dave Eastgate’s Hot Tokyo Nights). I’d only planned to see two or three shows this time with the expanded roster. However, as this month went on, it was apparent that I wasn’t going to be able to make it down to Melbourne this year for MICF. I was fortunate then to be able to replicate the festival experience by seeing the kinds of shows I would have seen down there anyway.
Like in Melbourne, I didn’t really have an interest in seeing the big headline acts with the traditional ‘as seen on Rove / Good News Week / Spicks and Specks’ emblazoned across their posters – I preferred to see the smaller shows downstairs in the Turbine room or the Visy or in one of the upper rooms opened for the festival. Part of the point of a festival is to, yes, see a couple of big names but then discover new things you wouldn’t necessarily discover otherwise. I also tried to get a mixture of standup and theatrical comedy – the latter of which, thankfully, this year’s program allowed more of.
I figured I would give some thoughts about the shows that I saw, given most of them are continuing on to Melbourne and Sydney. Now, let me just say first up:
I saw no bad shows. There were definitely shows that I liked more than others but I didn’t see a show I didn’t like. I also appreciate some things – one, that comedians are particularly sensitive to criticism and two, at least half of these acts will probably be Googling themselves to see what people said about them on the Internet. Bad talk about a comedian’s show can kill their ego and pitch them into a downward spiral of self-hatred and depression. “What does this idiot know? What does he know about doing a festival show? He’s only been doing it for six months, doing free spots. Wait till YOU do a comedy festival show, Tinselwood.” Well, maybe, but I still know what I like, and I re-iterate:
I saw no bad shows. I was happy with what I saw.
Greg Sullivan – Antisexual
Greg is one of the Triple M breakfast team. This was his first go at a Festival show and it was a solid first effort. I caught the last show of the run, on a night he was filming it, with an audience of good size. Local comic Davo opened with 5 minutes of warm-up jokes before saying “is that enough? You want me to bring him on? Alright then.” Out he came, a big man with a beard and glasses.
As the title suggests, the material was naturally rude and funny – a good portion of the set dedicated to the names of all the different types of erections men can get. Sully enlisted the help of an older woman to write on a whiteboard the names of the erections (the ‘nudger’, the ‘traveller’, etc.) . Since she was older, it was easily the nicest handwriting I'd seen dick jokes written in. There were jokes about sex addiction, teenage masturbation stories, and the obligatory Tiger Woods gags. The audience reaction to Sully’s material was okay, as I recall, but calls for audience participation – answers to questions, suggestions - was met with minimal response. I was mostly frustrated that there was a group of drunken chicks in the front row who kept talking and drinking throughout the whole show – it was incredibly incredibly rude, especially since Sully couldn’t exactly say “SHUT THE FUCK UP” or get into a fight because he was being filmed. The show ended at the right place - on a big laugh – and he didn’t overstay his welcome. Sully’s show ended up being the only local act I saw (missed out on seeing Mel and Harley) and it was good to see such support there in the audience.
Josh Earl vs The Australian Women’s Weekly Birthday Cake Book
I first saw Josh back in 2007 at a musical comedy show called “Laugh-A-Palooza” during MICF and was impressed. He shared the bill with Tim Minchin. Since then, his profile has grown, he’s put on multiple MICF shows and he was bringing his new show to Brisbane in between the Adelaide Fringe and Melbourne. I was sold on the title of the show alone, and it was the first show I bought a ticket to.
‘JE v AWWBCB’ was a very pleasurable show that lived up to my expectations. The laughs were often big laughs of recognition – if you knew the book, you were obviously going to get the most out of it. People remembering how they’d had that cake or ‘OH that happened to me, I remember arguing with my parents/children about that too’. The show had the right balance of songs, stand-up and sketches – combining multimedia presentations with the live stuff. Considering I went to a preview, there were very few noticeable technical difficulties – it seemed very smooth. The reaction I had at the end of the show was ‘that’s the kind of show I’d like to do’, which I didn’t think for any of the other shows I saw. It struck a chord with me – sweet and nostalgic, with whimsy and self-deprecation. I’m hoping good word of mouth will make this show a big success for Josh in MICF.
Des Bishop
I’m going to admit it: I did not know who Des Bishop was until I was given a couple of tickets to his show. I did not appreciate the size of his fan base, especially in Ireland. I do now. I still haven’t seen any of his other material so I can’t really say whether this was his best show or not, but I definitely enjoyed it.
I again ended up going to the final night of the run, which happened to coincide with the Sunday before St. Patrick’s Day – which is obviously deemed ‘close enough’ on the Irish/Australian calendar. Hence, on this particular night, a very large part of the audience constitution was made up of (mostly drunken) Irish people. They seemed to be expecting a rollicking, bawdy parade of dirty jokes. Maybe they were just excited to be seeing Des for a fraction of the price they’d pay to see him back home. But any rowdiness expected from the Irish however was dismissed when Des revealed the theme of his show – “My Dad Was Almost James Bond”. Des gets very personal, talking about his one-time actor father (who was almost James Bond) and all of the discoveries and realizations that overcame him when his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer in late 2009. He shows clips of his father in bit parts in Zulu and Day Of The Triffids, both of which are called back to hilarious effect later in the show. At some point, Des went off topic to tell some dirty material about ‘period sex’ and his first experience in a threesome before realizing he’s going to go ten minutes overtime if he continues. So he comes back to talking about his childhood, growing up in Queens then moving back to Ireland, all the time being in awe of his Dad and the bizarre things dads seem to do, always being assured by his parents that “someday you’ll understand”. When that day comes unexpectedly in late 2009, it’s overwhelming. It’s touching, poignant and very funny.
About half way through, seven more drunken Irish people crashed in through the doors interrupting the mood of the show. Des actually had to tell them to shut up and focus – it’s not a typical Des Bishop show; it’s a show about his Dad dying of cancer. They shut up, and he continued.
I really should watch some clips of Des on YouTube to see what his other stage material is like, but I was suitably impressed with this introduction. He did end up going over time, but I think the unexpected intrusion of the dirty stuff provided some nice relief if you felt the show was getting a little too emotionally overwhelming.
Felicity Ward Reads From The Book Of Moron
I was quite keen to catch Felicity – we had to cut her from our trip to Melbourne last year because of a scheduling clash, and she ended up getting great reviews and a nomination for Best Newcomer. So yeah, a little gutted was I. I also met her very briefly way back in 2007 when Ronnie Johns had just wrapped up, so it was good to see her continue and find success as a solo act.
Her new show “The Book Of Moron” sees her seated on a big armchair (on dangerous wheels, apparently) by a stuck-on fireplace, in a jacket and with pipe. An accompanying musician dressed as a loyal dog plucks some lovely music while she recites her tales of embarrassment. There really is a Book of Moron but she barely “reads” it. The show is a series of self-deprecating stories that she clearly knows off by heart, and is thus able to jump up and energetically re-enact them, making the performance more interesting than if she were simply bound to the chair. The stories themselves do indeed paint her as a klutzy moron, somehow getting herself into awkward situations that wouldn’t be out of place on Curb Your Enthusiasm, involving a Big Issue vendor (my favourite story), a creepy masseuse, performing at a Bar Mitzvah and, finally, her childhood encounters with irritable bowel syndrome.
The show and the stories certainly didn't leave me unimpressed but it didn’t quite live up to my expectations either – I remember a handful jokes not landing and Felicity & her dog-man musician vocally justifying it as ‘we thought it was funny’. I also thought the finale wasn’t particularly strong or satisfying – it’s like all of the energy she had spent building and building with each of those stories was then allowed to fizzle with a song that was sweetly sung but not particularly funny or memorable.
But what I did take away from it is that Felicity is a very bright, bubbly, zany and funny performer – she knows her material well and performs it with infectious energy, and I’m glad I got to finally see her.
Sammy J & Randy in Ricketts Lane
I was unsure whether I was going to be able to see Sammy and Randy (aka puppeteer Heath McIvor), given my week was packed with nighttime engagements. As it happened, the night I was going to see Claudia O’Doherty’s Melbourne Fringe winning show Monster Of The Deep 3D, the performance was cancelled due to “illness”. I was given a substitute ticket to Ricketts Lane, which worked out very nicely. In 2009, I managed to see all three shows Sammy and Heath had put on: their solo shows ‘1999’ and ‘Randy’s Postcards From Purgatory’ at MICF, and then their acclaimed collaboration, the dark Disney-spoof ‘Sammy J in the Forest Of Dreams’ at QPAC’s In Stitches festival. The two of them are phenomenally talented and witty chaps and, even though I liked their solo shows, when they’re together they bounce off of each other like the best double acts and it’s magical to watch. Ricketts Lane is no exception.
Sammy and Randy (a purple, noseless, hairless puppet) are housemates and best friends who met under unusual circumstances in a seedy strip club. They spend their nights playing unique board games and singing each other to sleep. During the day, Sammy works as a tax lawyer while Randy cooks from Barack Obama’s audio cookbook. One day, Sammy begins investigating the shady tax dealings of a shonky nightclub owner, only to discover that his best friend Randy is deeply involved. Soon, Randy becomes a puppet (both figuratively AND literally) in a tax fraud case that Sammy is prosecuting. Can their friendship survive?
The show has a lot of big laughs – playing with stage conventions and fourth wall breaking asides (referring to blackouts, scene changes, covering gaps so the puppeteer remains obscured). A hilarious trial scene provides a quick but awesome technical gag involving colour. The music is wonderfully witty, the puppetry is amazing. The show was very good technically, no snafus. There was an emotional weight to their friendship – there’s heartbreak and betrayal (it seems in every show the ‘Sammy J’ character manages to screw someone over) and a touching shot at redemption - and that’s a testament to Sammy and Heath’s performances.
It was another brilliant show. I expect at least four star reviews when this hits Melbourne. Not to be missed.
Wil Anderson - Wilful Misconduct
This was my exception to the ‘no big acts’ guideline – because I was given free tickets to it. There were a lot of people here to see Wil, a very very popular guy, filling the Powerhouse Theatre. I had only once seen his standup before when he made a surprise appearance at the Sit Down one night to test out some new material. On that night, I enjoyed it but I suspected part of my enjoyment was the surprise of a celebrity suddenly being right in front of me. This was the first time I was prepared to see Wil’s show. I have to admit: it didn’t do it for me that much this time around.
It’s high energy, very loud and very foul mouthed – once he starts, he just goes, goes and goes for the full hour at top gear. A lot of the audience got on board and loved that stuff, but it was too “I’m on a fucken angry rant, I’m fucken goin for it, fuck, and if you don’t like it, fuck awwwf” for me. I remember a lot of obvious and easy targets being hit – Tiger Woods, Ipswich/Logan jokes, the ridiculousness of our obsession with this stupid tunnel, etc.
But I definitely had some big laugh moments. I laughed quite a bit at his routines about the getting older and using drugs, and problems with the local media’s reporting of the Haiti earthquake. The “theme” of Wil’s show is about evolution, survival of the fittest and natural selection, enforced by his mantra “Let. Them. Go.” referring to the idiots of our species e.g. those who rushed to the beaches to watch the tsunami waves. Once he announced that theme, it allowed him for a run of funny list of examples of idiot and/or bogan behavioral traits – short, quick jokes that were to the point. And that’s when I started to like the show – when the “fuck” laden rants in a silly voice were put aside to make pointed observational jokes.
That’s just my feelings – it wasn’t a bad show, there were a lot of people (about 500 people) really really liking it, but it wasn’t as consistently entertaining to me as, say…
The Pajama Men – Last Stand To Reason
Finally.
The Pajama Men were all the rage when we were down in Melbourne last year. We were there for the final week of the Festival, we arrived on the day the Barry nominations came out, and the Pajama Men were the talk of the town. Every single remaining show was booked out. Then they won. Devastated to miss them. Then the Powerhouse booked them for the Brisbane Comedy Festival. YAY.
I had to tell people that this was the show they had to see, without actually seeing them myself. Brisbane had not heard of them. Melbourne and Sydney had discovered them, but not us. I had to tell people that these guys have the buzz.
And when I finally saw them, I was not disappointed.
They were amazing.
Two guys from New Mexico – Mark and Shenoah – appear onstage wearing pyjamas. The only props with them are two chairs. Musician Kevin Hume is seated at the back, behind a keyboard, guitar and glockenspiel. They begin by announcing that they’re going to tell the story of the train ride they took last summer. And with that, “Mark” and “Shenoah” disappear for the rest of the show.
For the next 60 minutes, they rapidly and effortlessly switch between dozens of bizarre and hilarious characters that all seem to be catching this train. No two characters are the remotely the same – they play women, men, punk rockers, foreigners speaking in broken English, ghosts, mass murderers, interrogators, children, ghost children, cops, magicians, Russian Roulette players, train employees, cowboys (“who come in from the rain… and f**k someone”), old men, hack standup comedians, and one amusingly bizarre crab-like creature which is never properly explained and doesn’t need to be. It’s breathtaking to watch – no costume changes, just a rapid rearrangement of the seats and change of expression and voice - and it’s all gutbustingly hilarious. My face hurt. It’s a cliché, but it’s a cliché because it’s true.
There’s a loose narrative involving a tragedy alluded to in flashbacks and flash-forwards, but the less you know about that the better – it’s the kind of show where you don’t want to expect what’s going to happen next, adding to the zany chaotic brilliance of it.
It was no accident that this was also the very last show scheduled for the Festival. The best was saved for last. I want to see it again, but sadly, the train and all its wacky passengers has set sail.
You lucky bastards, Melbourne.
So that’s it. My act count was up 700% on last year, and that’s not counting the Chalkboard or Livewired spots I was lucky to be in.
(see previous post about the Chalkboard gig with Adam Hills, Hannah Gadsby and Nick Grimwood).Overall, the Comedy Festival improved over last year and it will be interesting to see if the Festival grows in size anymore and if so, what opportunities will it present to the community. I know more than a few people - comedians mostly - who were grumbling that for a “Brisbane” festival, there were surprisingly few Brisbane acts, which felt more insulting given there was a massive open call in January for local acts to apply for the Festival. (Disclosure: this was a frustration I too felt having applied with The Complete First Season.) But, in the end, though, you have to respect that, like everything, it comes down to money. The Powerhouse took it upon itself to book and pay for all of these shows, as opposed to Melbourne where the financial burden falls mostly upon the acts themselves – the Powerhouse had the most to lose. At this stage, they have to invest in shows they know can sell before they can take risks. What I do like, though, is that this year’s Festival procured a handful of acts and shows that weren’t just standup but theatrical, musical, sketch, narrative shows – more indicative that it’s building towards being a comedy festival like Sydney if not Melbourne. And that gives me hope.
Should the Festival expand in size next year? I’d like to say yes – I want to see more Brisbane acts get exposure. But on the other hand, I want to see every single show be a financial success as well. I’m aware that some of the shows were not as well promoted, lost in the midst of the big players who don’t need the promotion because they’re household names already, and that seems to be one of the problems that I understand the MICF appears to have. Of course, MICF is oversaturated with acts and not enough promotion can be given but, given the size Brisbane is at the moment, it should surely be manageable to … wait, what was my point?
Oh yes. Loll.
Good work Powerhouse.
P.S. Can we get Nina Conti next year please? I don’t think she’s been to Brisbane. Brisbane needs to meet Nina and her hand-passenger menagerie.
P.P.S. What are the chances of a ‘laugh pack’ like deal when it comes to the tickets i.e. discounts for multiple purchases?
