Woof-o-meter :-
0-Die Bastard : 1-Crap : 2-Rubbish(watchable) : 3-OK : 3.5-Nice : 4-Good : 4.5-Very Good : 5-WOW
30.06.10 : Story Club and I Fought the Law : Hermann's Bar
Mr Host, Ben Jenkins, started us off with a science based story that linked overly affectionate girls with a parasite in mice called Toxaoplasma Gondii. The parasite gets in the mouses brain and makes it fearless so when a cat attacks it doesn't run away and gets eaten, and then it gets transferred from the cats to girls. I saw a special on this parasite years ago where they showed an experiment of it's effect. They had a tank with some fish in it where and dipped a fake storks head into. Only some fish darted away to escape and some just stayed put. The ones that didn't flee had the parasite, which was evident by of their swollen gut, and lost their ability to feel fear. This one they linked mainly to the French because of their odd ball eating habits, and may explain the disproportionate number of French thrill-seekers. Ben went on to assume his fried Kyle has this parasite when he told of a strange encounter with a dangerous looking man late one night. It was a good story with a lot of descriptive elements.
Benny Davis started with a story about his friend, which we discover to be a self professed chronic masturbater. He quickly switched to another story about him and his friends trying to break a beer drinking record while visiting beer halls in Austria. This part of the story was so compelling that I forgot about the first part so I was shocked when his friend reappeared at the end bringing the story to a sticky and disguising conclusion. Another crazy travel story that was a lot of fun.
Sertan Saral produced 3 nice short stories about being a very young kid at school. It took me back to when I was young and also experiencing embarrassing situations. Even though these things haunt our minds we can hardly be held responsible because we were young and didn't know any better.
Tom Walker produced a ripper about him attending a somewhat racist school and blowing up at a teacher that played a trick on him. Super funny and shocking at the same time.
Cale Bain did a brilliant story about a part of his life living in Canada and sharing a flat with 2 brothers, but not biological brothers but adopted brothers with one being white and one being black. These 3 got into hi-jinx with crazy parties but it was their addictive lifestyle that kept them in constant adventures searching of certain substances. He also took a trip down South and like a wine connoisseur he gave us the low down to where the best stuff is in South America, Bolivia if your interested. One s__t crazy story that is like some out-there Cheech & Chong adventure movie with, police, gun fights, bikers, and even an appearance by Dan Aykroyd. Excellent and a lot of fun.
I hope Michael Hing's story was fiction because it got pretty real with some serious s__t, so for legal reasons so that no one gets in trouble we better keep it under our hats and that's why the next bit is somewhat vague. It was about hanging with the bad crowd just to be accepted and thinking he got caught for it but in fact getting caught for something that was not much worst than a school yard taunt, but because he left it in a traceable medium it came back to cause trouble. The 3 stories in the second half were all ballistic and got huge cheers. 5
29.06.10 : Full Body Contact No Love Tennis : Roxbury Hotel - impro
This week there were only 2 pairs competing to allow for some special troupes at the ends of the halves. The 2 teams were Jordan & Steen Raskopoulos and Carlo Ritchie & Nick Fisher, and they did 2 scenes each in the first half. We saw a ferret and dog fight, that had the ferret torn to shreds when the owners video game power ups didn't work in real life. A gambler that locked his son in the car for 2 moons until he escaped and turned up in Europe an additional 3 moons later. He was given some happy cookies and grew wings and few into the basket of a passing balloon. When his father discovered his son was missing he rode his moped across the ocean and finally coaxed him out of the balloon and back to him. And there was also a scene with a cupcake baking killer. The audience liked the scenes but for me they were only slightly bizarre so it was more smiley for me. The first half ended with the long form impro troupe who I think were doing something like a reality truth scene, and because there was nothing bizarre in it as I see reality everyday, I quickly tuned out after a couple of minutes so I don't remember much. We started the second half with both teams finishing off their allotted 19 minutes with one scene each. We started with Carlo and Nick navigating a ship past the Northern Lights with them doing a flashback as to how they were named. In the flashback Carlo set the scene in Finland and when he further refined the location to Seinäjoki some people nearly fell off their seats from laughter because they knew the similarly located story that he told in Story Club 2 weeks ago. Then he went on another of his super funny bat s__t crazy explanations that had him as a hunter trying to coax a deer out of the forest, but the deer refused sensing a trap. Eventually the deer falls for it and Carlo nonchalantly kills another player and adds them to the long list of Ben Jenkins he has killed. Very funny and the best of the night for me. Jordan & Steen did a Parkour(street acrobatics) scene with Steen pulling off a difficult flip over some old men playing chess with him tea-bagging their foreheads on the way through. He later comes undone with he tries it again to the now prepared chess players. It was as crude as it was funny. These were the scenes that really made me laugh. Lastly was a special cast that used to rip it up in Sydney in days gone by with Toby Truslove, Daniel Cordeaux and Rebecca De Unamuno, and was the main reason I went to this show. They did some nice scenes of which Toby was the best. The crowd liked most of it but I'm a bit desensitised to impro lately so I'm a bit hard to impress, so it just makes a 4.
29.06.10 : Grown Ups - movie
Comedy : Five 12 year old friends from a winning basketball team who have lost touch get back together after 30 years. It that same roughly made not that brilliant storyline that we have become accustomed to from this franchise, but it doesn't matter because it was still fun. It was basically 5 mates ribbing each other throughout the movie so it is probably for a selected audience. Not everyone will like it but for me a 4
27.06.10 : Vampire Theatresports : Belvoir Theatre - impro
Ewan Campbell was very good tonight as our host and was highly animated. Sometimes he isn't because he feels the audiences these days don't like interaction, but I say as long as we don't have to touch the stranger next to us a rocket up the audiences ass is what is required. It would have been wasted this night as the crowd was mainly associated with theatresports. The format was 2 teams battled, with each team doing one short scene and then the teams came together for an all in continuing longer scene. This 2 short 1 long scene format was repeated for 4 rounds with voting after the short ones. The voting was done by the audience howling or making a vampire noise, depending on which scene they liked. Unfortunately one sound was hard to remember and was naturally quieter than the other so it was hard to get an accurate take on who won, but it wasn't that important anyway. The long scene was set in a lodge with 3 murderous stuffed animals on the wall killing all the guests, until one escapes prompting the head mistress to get her minions to chase her down. Unfortunately not realising she would ran to another lodge, containing Julia Gillard who used her red hair and her security team to defeat the minions and the mistress. In the short scenes a Dentist had a gargoyle chair that turned the patient to confetti, old ladies at the Bingo went on a killing spree, a garden furniture salesman not pronouncing enough r's, honey in envelopes inciting a bee swarm and chain smokers, and an guy directing his student in bad luck plate painting breaks a plate and gets attacked by an army of angry grandmothers.
By the larger number of young players in the cast I assume this is more a show for them to step up rather than the profitable enterprise this used to be. Even though they were younger players no one was bad, which is something I hate because it could put off first time audience members for life, and in fact there were places where they were quite clever. All the scenes worked and there were no duds making it entertaining throughout but unfortunately not blistering, and for me it felt a bit expensive for what we got. I think first time audience members would have enjoyed it but I don't think there were that many because the audience numbers were a bit low. It was good enough, somewhere between 3.5 and 4.
25.06.10 : 10th year Gala : Laugh Garage Syd
It was a big line up that would test the packed out crowds stamina. The best on the night was Ray Badran who killed it and got the biggest applause. Danny Grozdich was good and used the gimmick of removing a piece of clothing every time a joke bombed, the strange thing was that he took clothing off on some of the jokes that didn't. I was a bit worried that everyone already knew Paul Warnes' routine and he wouldn't get laughs, but those worries were misplaced as he did a good job again. Peter Green did a new routine that was also good. Darren Sanders(hosting), Sam Bowring, Dave Jory, and Desh were all good. George Smilovici only did a short spot, and from memory he has long sections in his routine, so he couldn't do the good stuff, and coupled with a heckler we didn't get a good example of his stuff. Barry Hamilton did some old stuff that felt a bit dated to me but was still OK. Unfortunately Damian Smith, who I though was good, and Peter Meisel were in the last bracket, and the crowd must of been fatigued because they were very quite. 4
23.06.10 : Hermann's Heroes - Stand Up Comedy To Make Love About : Hermann's Bar
Our host was Michael (hyper) Hing doing a joke or two but mainly doing off the top of his head add on comments between sets relating to subjects of the previous comic. We learned about a rude Japanese TV show, 24HR Bukkaki. He might have gone overboard with his sex offender Beta male bit because Ben Jenkins, on sound, had to reign him in by turning the lights and mic off at the Hingster crazy antics. Michael also had a story of him rummaging through a sex shop for a pair of cheap dildos as props for a Duckling sketch, or so he told us, that had Ben playing a vuvuzela horn when he went too far.
Patrick Magee told us how he got his Nanny job and the strangest Aesop tale ever told.
Ian Ferrington had Japanese scientists killing whales with asteroids and a translation of a rap battle.
Alistair Magee romantic dream about an actual girl crush ended in the worst kiss in the world.
Matt Watson procrastinated about studying for his exam by listening to a language tape with 100 common German phrases and then watching TV comedies.
Phil Roser bit about suction capping a dildo to a mirror was funny because it was groan worthy. Mark Waugh pant tuck toilet adventure was in the same funny bad taste style.
Robbie Jones did a bit about porn censorship, tolerance, and desperation. I think too much porn gives you an unrealistic visual idea of what you are expecting in a partner. The less you know the more desperation drives you.
James Colley hates clowns and wrote a condom commercial.
I liked Blake Mitchell joke about him Veeting downstairs but unfortunately it gave away a lot of information about the few people that laughed at it. He also told of weeing on a German priest who was sleeping on the lower bunk.
Paul Ayre citing that falling in love is like a mental illness and then giving a real life example.
Jack Druce did some stuff about You Tube and baby naming SMS's, and was the only one that did material I was familiar with because I had seen him before.
I thought I was cool and a hip daddy-O that understands the groovy people, but unfortunately I wasn't. Some of the jokes cater for a younger demographic so I kind of felt left out when I didn't get some of them, that's what happens when your old, and because of this I should be ruled out as a judge for the audiences satisfaction. I thought the show was nice, but not killer like last time, and it's only near the end that it dawned on me this show is very different compared to a conventional comedy show. Most conventional comics try stuff and keep what works and get rid of stuff that doesn't, and then just repeat the good stuff every show while trialling little bits at a time relying on the main routine to guarantee laughs. Here they get a routine that killed last month and just throw that away and write a totally new one for the next show, and then because they can't even trial it until the actual show to see if it works no one really knows what's going to happen, and that coupled with first timers also not being able to trial their stuff before hand makes it feel to me like the entertainment levels of these shows fluctuates. Most conventional comics don't do comedy this way because it's too risky and is a lot of work coming up with fresh new stuff all the time. So when you realise the difficulty level extra points should be awarded because they make what is basically a training ground trial show entertaining even though it could quite easily go bad. The crowd sounded like it was a 4.
22.06.10 : Get Him to the Greek - movie
Adventure, Comedy, Music : A timid record company employee is sent on a mission to get an out of control out of favor rock-star to his comeback concert, as the title would suggest. There are some really good laughs but they are spaced so far apart in the first 2/3 that it may feel tedious. It does make up for the lack of laughs in the last third so it does leave you on a high. 90 minutes is enough for this simple premise so it would have been better if it was trimmed down. 3.5
20.06.10 : Blank the Musical : Roxbury Hotel - impro
Tonight was Space the Musical. It started slowly, as you would expect as they only do impro every second week, unlike when they did that Bondi stint with 5 shows in a row so they had a lot of practice and everyone was wired. But as usual Jordan Raskopoulos set the ball rolling, he always makes sh*t happen, when he came up with the crazy white South African hyper-drive engineer spouting out references from that unusual South African sci-fi movie District 9, with him repeating lines from the movie with the accent, like, "I don't like those prawns", etc, and then refusing to fly into black space as a reference to the old apartheid days of white South Africa, and even refusing a cola and taking a lemonade instead because cola is too black. It was also good to see Dave Harmon, who probably hasn't done this for years, but he quickly recovered his skills and came up with more funny bits, like the funny lines between Brydie's song. No one really took charge of the 3 stories so they were like snowballs accumulating snow as they rolled down a hill with ideas being added from different people all the time. It was so confusing it even had them scratching their heads as to what would be next to make the stories come together, but that just made it funnier, unfortunately it's harder to explain. There was a female professor who had a student that was in love with her so she had to leave and go on a journey. There were 2 guys looking for space to hold a meeting for 35 people but their attic barely had enough room for 2 people. In fact they were so tightly squeezed in their man parts were touching. Dave must of felt uncomfortable being that close to Jordan so he switched so they were back to back, but that just made their butts rub. Dave ultimately went on a journey to find a larger room and ran into the professor and was smitten. So much so that he started showering her with gifts from the money he borrowed from the Mafia to rent a bigger room. He also funded a scientist 35 million to build a space ship and recruit the afore mention hyper-drive engineer and a navigator, who they totally ignored and always plotted different courses to the ones he picked. The nerdy scientist was made captain and subtly forced to make love with the hyper-drive engineer's wife so he got his knees broken. The Mafia came for their money and started getting rough but the boys that borrowed the money just sold everything they bought and paid them back. Good show. 4
20.06.10 : The Last Smack the Panda Impro Show Ever : Roxbury Hotel - impro
Unfortunately they didn't go out on a bang. They funniest bit was the Han Solo and Chewbacca, living in the Millennium Falcon share-house scene. They can all do impro but there's no spark. 3
19.06.10 : FABBA : Oatley RSL - music
I think I have seen more cover bands in the last year than I have seen in the previous 15 years, and ABBA again, I'm not even an ABBA fan, oh well at least I'm out of the house. The audience is 90% girls so it's not all bad, but unfortunately I'm at the front in the only available chairs so I got strangled by Agnetha's feather boa and a strange woman is touching my leg. 3
18.06.10 : Brad Upton(USA) : Laugh Garage Sydney
I made a big mistake, if I had known how good this was going to be I would've come Thursday and Friday. Now I'm thinking about Saturday but I have to let someone else the opportunity to see the funniest s__t on the planet in what will be a sold out night, better book ahead. The place was packed, and why wouldn't it be with hernia ripping comedy. We started with Darren Sanders ripping it up all night. He did a religious section that grouped all his religious stuff together and added a new Last Supper bit that was to die for. There was an annoying woman in the front that spoiled one of his punchlines but it didn't matter because his expert add-libbing skills turned it around. He is so good at add-libbing that I have seen him turn a night around at the usually stand offish Sackville Hotel when some Italians walked in by using mafia, horses head in the bed, and his Italian wifes fat bottom gags, right off the top of his head. Last time I saw Nick Cappa he was good but tonight he was just nice, his new stuff in the middle had a little lull. I practically know Paul Warnes routine off by heart and he still makes me laugh, and watching the audiences reaction when they walk into one of his punchlines, that I know is coming, is even funnier. It's like watching people tripping over a step in the pavement that you know is there. Michael Connell was one of the first people to Facebook friend me. I didn't know who he was but I friend everybody, and when I saw comedy stuff on his page I though he was a promoter. Tonight I found out he is a comic, and a super good one at that. He did a great bit comparing his stand-up job to a brain surgeon, stating the + and - of each job that was ridiculously good, and the bit about him attending a school with only 3 students and him always finishing in the top 3 was clever as it was funny. Lastly was Brad Upton, who was like, WOW! this is funny sh*t, he absolutely killed it and got a huge cheer at the end. I like comedy where you learn things, like how things are done in different countries, and turning them into comedy makes it even more interesting, and funny to boot. Tonight we learned about vasectomies, a privatised health scheme that they want you to pay for everything so they advertise to get your business, life in the not so nice Seattle, and a hilarious married-wife section. Brad ripped it up from start to finish with no time for breaks which left you with head spins. It's a shame he's only here for a week. 5
18.06.10 : 5000 total blog hits. Most are bounces but I will take them.
16.06.10 : Story Club and We're Not In Kansas Anymore : Hermann's Bar
Our host Ben Jenkins gave us the first story which was a somewhat liberal interpretation of how famous Aesop was by trumping him up to superstar status, like a rock-star, with him telling fables in the classiest forums. But near the end of his career he was running out of material and losing his appeal. It was nice the way it made you think that Aesop could have been the Seinfeld of 600BC ancient Greece.
Mark Sutton did a great travel story. Instead of going to conventional tourist attractions in the U.S. he went to the not so well visited ones. He started in Memphis Tennessee, and went the odd ball way through Missouri, then Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas then into New Mexico just so he could say he turned left at Albuquerque(as in Bugs Bunny cartoons). You actually have to turn right to go to Los Alamos and the Trinity site, which is the blast site of the first atomic bomb test. He gave unknown facts about the states he passed thought that were amusing and shocking at the same time. He visited the nuclear museum for some inappropriate films that would be classified not very PC by today's standards, but then again war is never very PC. I always like a good travel story, and a science based one is even better. It was well written, making it funny and interesting at the same time.
Benedict Hardie story was about a lone boy and his only friend, his dog, trying to understand the world when things go tragic. I liked it, it was simple, sweet, but ultimately sad, and moving.
I found Anya Poukchanski story sad too. It was about a relationship that failed before it started. The guy wasn't a d__k he was just young and inexperienced, so he used the only reference he knew and that was unrealistic Hollywood romance movies, which made him look like a klutz to a more experienced partner. Unfortunately relationships are learned by trial and error and this is a mistake we all have made. At least the crowd laughed throughout.
Bridie Connell was about a class of misfits who would gang together to play tricks on their teacher until one day when everything changed. It was a nice story that was a lot of fun, even though there was a shock in the middle.
Carlo Ritchie came up with a brilliant Alfred Hitchcock suspense murder comedy story(is that possible), about him meeting a girl that was touring Australia and then chasing her half way around the world to Finland to a town with the unpronounceable name something like Seinäjoki. It was so well written and delivered that it got a huge cheer.
Alex Lee did an incredible abstract story based on the BP oil spill mutating animals into predatory killers, and to the top of the food chain. It's abstract imagery including the crazy flying octopus made it a good story.
Zoe Norton Lodge story was about her being a good Samaritan and helping an aged woman in distress, and then doing some volunteering at a nearby home for the aged. I shouldn't be judging this one as I would be biased in favour of the aged because so many of my neighbours are going through similar stuff. It was a good story well written and delivered, but it's subject matter made me sad.
I was having one of those days so my overall score would be a bit low compared to the rest of the audiences actual enjoyment. 4
15.06.10 : Full Body No Contact No Love Tennis : Roxbury Hotel - impro
The first half was 2 pairs doing 3 scenes each totalling 19 minutes. First up was David Callan & Gabby Millgate who killed it. This is how impro always used to be, with a very technical style using everything possible to get a laugh. Like when Gabby mimed riding the bike she could have taken the easy way out, but instead she mimed getting off it, and then mimed putting the bike stand down, then mimed balancing the bike on the stand, and then mimed taking off the helmet and putting it on the handle bars. It was so clear and precise you knew exactly what she was doing, unlike some who just flail their arms. Their French beret scene was great with wacky characters and wacky accents, which is how I like it with things taken to the extreme, and why not add wacky accents when you can. Their TV soap opera was like it was on steroids with such over the topness that it was ridiculously funny. Their last scene about a woman getting her car fixed by a stuttering mechanic was also great, and when Gabby made David sing in a stutter, David hammed it up to the extreme. I was trying to think back when I last saw Gabby and it was on Big Brother where she was the only entertainer trying to entertain on that show, unlike the other entertainers who just sat on their asses, but live I think it was around 2004ish, and then she kind of disappeared. So I don't know how she kept her form with out practice, but tonight was the best I have ever seen her perform. It's hard to keep up with David but Gabby actually passed him a few times. Next up was the new comers, and they can be hit and miss, but tonight they were good. Will Erimya & Hayley Dinnison did a good library scene with Will trying to get Haley's attention but with her ignoring him and continuing to read her book. Their cooking scene was good, but it was their camel owning brothers where they let their imagination run wild and came up with a wacky and funny scene.
The second half was 2 pairs doing a solid block of 19 minutes each, with Jon Williams & Amanda Buckley up first. Jon has been missing for a few months so I mainly came to see Jon's return, because he is always good value, but these two together pushed the envelope to the absurd, like some kind of Dali surrealist piece. That was the funniest bit of serious nonsense I have ever seen, and me trying to explain it is going to be murder, someone should've video it. If you can follow this, the story involves a wife with dead arms, who was married by a cat and dog to her husband, who is her brother, while arguing with their Aussie neighbours who stole the cat and dog. The style was like one player would give a sensible line and then the other would take a word out of that and reply with a ludicrous line based on the premise, but delivered in a serious exaggerated way. Like Jon would say "You have no feelings", and Amanda would reply "Yes I have lost all but 3 of my senses", citing she has lost the sense of taste and touch, which explained the dead arms flopping around. But then Jon tries to make her do things with her arms, even though she is not supposed to use them, by opening a door. She has to refuse, so Jon makes a cat flap for the door, but he didn't realise how hard it is to crawl with no arms so it was still a struggle for Amanda. It was line after line of extreme nonsense that was so funny that I had head spins, 5 woofs for you. Lastly was Cale Bain & Alex Lee with a nice piece about a boy giving a girl a dead budgie to eat to help her in her maths exam. 4.5
15.06.10 : The A-Team - movie
Action, Adventure, Comedy : Just as the title song goes, a crack team is wrongly accused of a crime they didn't commit. There are 2 good bits and nice action scenes but it didn't stand out for me. Some of the action scenes at the end were similar to the copy cat Losers film, like the truck flip and bike. 3
12.06.10 : The Beatnix : Oatley Hotel - music
I haven't seen this Beatles show for a long, long, time and thought it would be something fun, and it was. They proved to be very popular over here because the place was packed and the crowd was dancing up a storm. The first set is the early 60's stuff so they wore their shiny blue suits and played all the good songs that get the crowd bopping. I'm not a Beatles fan but I like the early stuff because it not too serious, more simple, and a lot of fun. The second set is the weird stuff like Sgt Pepper's, and they wore the colourful suits to go with it. At least they played the better ones you can dance to. Weird things that happened was I got the back of my hand kissed, at least it was by a girl this time. Lotta fun. 4
11.06.10 : Mick Meredith : Laugh Garage Syd
David Schmiedt was our host and mainly did audience interaction, but he still did some of his very funny routine and some of his great prop gags. Desh was trying new stuff and was good. Damian Smith blitzed it with a routine that is now great from start to finish, he was patchy before, that the crowd loved so much they gave him a great cheer. No matter how many times you see Mick Meredith he is always excellent, and because he mixes it up every time every show feels new, even I don't know all of his stuff. He is like a big kid and that has universal appeal. Even though his appearance may not be that impressive to those that don't know him, like the Americans in the audience, his routine is so good that they were instantly charmed. He is always killer. 4.5
10.06.10 : IL Dago II - Now with Noodles : Canada Bay Club
I was a bit curious about IL Dago but I didn't know if it was going to be like Wogs out of Work, sketch which is a bit dated, or just stand-up, and with tickets at $40 being a bit out of my reach I didn't want to take a risk, but luckily free ones became available so I took a risk and luckily it was stand-up and very good stand-up at that. Jason Chong was our host and he would do a spot before each of the comedians. The first slot he did his routine, which was good, then a song, and then the final slot he did a comical sign language interpretation of The Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody that brought the house down. 4
George Kapiniaris was next and I know his stuff and it's very good. He does half ethnic based jokes and half normal stuff. In his ethnic stuff he uses a bit of Greek and Italian phrases that are funnier if you understand them but not a necessity. He has just become a new father so most of his jokes are centred to the younger side of the audience, like a cool uncle. 4.5
I have seen small snippets of Joe Avati on TV and have heard that he was popular a while back but have never seen him live, so he was one of the main reasons I wanted to see this show. On TV he was using a lot of Italian phrases but in this one he only used a couple of words, the other show was probably catered to solely Italian audiences. His humour is more catered for the older demographic in that they are more simple observational humour. Unfortunately some of his jokes are past their use by date for me, like the comparing wog food in the school playground, which was similar to a joke on the very first Wogs out of Work show, but luckily there were only about 3 of these and the less travelled audience liked them anyway. 3.5
The comedians had to battle a Signora(a married woman, in English) who thought she was at home scolding her kids and kept talking to these middle aged men like they were children. So to get back at her at the start of the second half a announcement was made to put all phones on silent, and if the husband of the Signora could put Signora on silent also that would be good. The audience applauded.
Lastly was Simon Palomares who I haven't seen live, but had seen a special on him recently about how he tried to do stand-up back in Spain. He had to write a whole new routine based just on this demographic and even though it wasn't constructed for us it was still funny. Based on that I though he would be worth watching and he was. He hardly did any ethnic jokes but instead centred his stuff around being a dad of teen EMO boys and what they get up to. His routine is very sharp and current and I loved it, as that's an area that I like and it doesn't get talked about much. I think students will find his stuff funny, as they can relate, but even the middle aged audience laughed the loudest at Simon's stuff. 5
We finished with songs IL Divo style with the words changed to comedic ones. Overall 4.5
09.06.10 : The Junior Tennis Academy : Hermann's Bar - impro
The first half was 5 pairs doing long form impro for about 6 minutes each. I don't know what happened, these are supposed to be newbies with 3 people never being on this stage before but everybody absolutely blitzed it. It may be Hermann's, because you can sometimes see nerves at the Manning , but here it's like performing for your friends in your lounge room. I will try to match the names with the advertised list but because I don't actually know these people I will apologies if they are wrong(FB me if you want a change).
Alistair Magee & Vicente Araullo-Peters. The first story was set in 1984 in down-town NY, as was repeated constantly, where kids played on the street with their steel hoops being pushed along by their sticks, more like early 1900's, and where occasionally one of them would be run-over and killed. A hungry boy begs for bread but needs $5.50 to buy some. He catches a fish for a man and gets the money and is finally able to eat. Very funny opener with some quick thinking that left no pauses.
Charles Mitchell and Michael Richardson. One character tells the other the story of the Old Man and the Sea while they commit a bank robbery where one player shoots the other, and before he dies he tells the other player "Tell your wife I love her". At the funeral they are whisked to France and back. The interplay and quick thinking were also very funny.
Bridie Connell & Matt Watson. A little girl takes her belly dancing father to parents "talk about their job day". A little boy in the class thought he was hot and comes to dinner with them, it got very dubious from then on. The funniest part was when one player, played the father and the boy, was forced by the other player to have a conversation between the two. So to get around this he did voice-overs from behind the stage, but again she forced him to come out and have the conversation on the stage. Super funny.
James Colley & Hari Bhrugubanda. James went berserk playing the director and manipulating the poor actor(Hari) to the unfortunate extent of drawing a mono-brow on his forehead with a permanent marker and then war paint markings on his cheeks. To cap off more bad luck for Hari, James did a huge face slap swing that accidentally connected with poor Hari, that brought the house down, when he had to choose between acting and a girl. The exaggerated character and the physical jokes also made this one very funny.
Hunter Smith and Nick Fischer. Some how they miss took Alderaan from Star Wars to mean at the top of a mountain. On the mountain a blacksmith forged a sword that was stolen. In the forest the King of the Bears and his son track down the sword and kill the thief. This one was also super funny and I couldn't pick a winner as all the stories were equally funny.
The second half was a 40 minute romp featuring Pat Magee, Tom Walker, Michael Hing Sertan Saral, Steen Raskopoulos, Alex Lee, and Ben Jenkins. Ben started by narrating the story of the Sister of Truth where the God of Thunder strikes down the sister of a guy in a propeller machine and buries the ashes to never be found on Fire Island, or so they thought. The mysterious professor and his assistant(genie?) plan a dinner on the island and invite groups of people. They invite a pair of flat mates that are half brothers, with Carlo carrying over his theme of killing everyone from last week by killing all of Ben's relatives. Carlo did ask Ben if he should be given the gun based on what he did to Ben last week(see FBCNLT 25.05.10). There was a Cuban cage fighter, and friend, searching for the person who killed his brother, and some Siamese twins. At the dinner Carlo kills some more people and they are given the task of climbing the mountain looking for the miss read Sertan of Truth while navigating through dangerous tasks. The arguing Siamese twins have to pass through swinging axes and get partially cut apart but the scissor-man cuts them apart and then joins them back together as the glue-man. The flat mates pass a giant illegible spider. At the summit it is discovered that Carlo has killed one too many people , in the form of the Cuban cage fighters brother and get killed, scooped out, and made into a handbag. At the end it was that narrator who had tested them and wrapped everything up when the initial killer was brought to justice. An excellent performance by the experienced players with every scene being hilarious.
There was a Q & A at the end that wasn't really necessary, and it was harder than the actual show, but they hammed it up with slow motion replays that worked well. 5
08.06.10 : Jon Dore(CAN) : Comedy Store
There was a big choice of shows today but I went to the free one. We started with our host Steve Philp who is always good. Next was Dan Grozdich who took the chestticles joke to the extreme by making it a physical joke. See girls it was hard to look away. Umit Bali added some new stuff at the start and was good. Michael Workman discovered the trick to making his unusual humour acceptable to the masses with an excellent set, I think he used a more exaggerated physical delivery. Jacques Barrett did a very calculated delivery that absolutely killed. Jon Dore is what I call a lateral thinking comic. He doesn't just deliver a unexpected punchline but one that is at 90º to the unexpected, like Stewart Francis(Canada) but at a slower pace. One joke was "I got caught masturbating by my mother, and she started crying". "It may of been one of two things, 1, It was because I was using her oven mitt, (pause), or 2, maybe it was because my Dad was filming it". Sorry I can't convey the delivery in words but it was very unexpected like most of his jokes. A good show. 4.5
06.06.10 : Legion - movie
Action, Fantasy, Horror : An angel goes against God to save humanity. Stupid religious bible angels and demons crappy schlock horror flick. I think the audience suffered more that the characters that got killed in this flick. The 4 people in my screening were yawning, talking, stretching and walking around trying to stay awake. I wish I could give a negative score. 0
05.06.10 : Space Justice : UNSW
The story goes that soon after man walked on the moon in 1969 the galaxy was saturated with space travel. Criminals quickly took advantage and moved in to space for easy gains, so in 1974 Gough Whitlam formed a space police squad just to tackle the problem. The highlights were the greenest alien I have ever seen, Interrobot with a joystick attached to it's groin, the craziest fight/dance scene I have ever seen, and a good job by the cast. I think this was one was also mainly for the young people, as they were yucking it up all the way. For me it was OK until the last third where it got good. What I found was that there was a lot of getting to know the characters, until the middle where it hit me, Do these characters have a story at all. We finally got to the story near the end and this is where the show took off for me. I think making the story come in earlier and making it dominate would have been better for me. The story of Dr Keef at the end with him making huge number of clones of his girlfriend and then trying to kill all of them was the best bit and was very entertaining. 3.5
05.06.10 : Good News Week recording for 7.06.10 : ABC studios Ultimo
I didn't really want to go to this recording but there was a mix up when I booked for the last one. They gave me the conformation so late that I booked this one because I thought I didn't get in the first one, and afterward wished I didn't get in anyway. The whole show lacked any zing. It had a Green Eco theme, which is hard to joke about, or the writers were having a bad day because nothing they wrote was especially funny, more mildly amusing. Mikey Robins had Julia Morris and Matthew Hayden(Cricketer), and Claire Hooper had Josh Thomas and Craig Reucassel(Chaser), but no one really stood out. In fact the usually quite Claire did the most work in this show. Paul McDermott's introduction monologue was a bit lack luster because of the subject matter, but it did get a little bit funny at the end. First of the non regular games was kind of like a Master Mind-Millionaire game with one person coming out and sitting on a chair with Paul out front and being asked 5 multiple choice questions. Mathew did the questions for Mikey's team and Claire got a special guest, Dr Karl Kruszelnicki. Unfortunately he went on his usual long winded rambling science facts, but at least the other comedians could joke about it. Next game was the Hot Spot, which was OK. I think the editors will have their work cut out for them trying to make this one funny, but then again they made the boring bit in the last recording I saw funny. 3
04.06.10 : Storytelling at Performance Space's Clubhouse : Carriageworks
Like the last one in Feb this was another free show, I suggest joining the Storytelling Facebook page in case they do more. This show was shorter than the other but the storytellers were mainly comedians so it was a nice night. Our host assured us that the stories were all true without the hyperbally, which he later retracted somewhat when most of the acts were using similes, but at least I knew they were real so it was a lot more enjoyable for me. He also said that even though most of the speakers were comics the stories didn't necessarily have to be funny, but comedians being comedians they had to make it a little funny. We started with Justin Lodge and how he got punched on stage, and then his second story about an encounter in England with a lady that coerced him into giving her all his money. I had heard these stories before, but not lately, so they were still good. The next guy I had also seen before, but for the life of me I can't remember his name, but it didn't matter because I also haven't heard his story for a long time, and it was a good one anyway. It started when his Brazilian girlfriend's mother turned up at his apartment, and then while he was at work his girlfriends ex-boyfriend turns up and starts living there. He was pissed, but to combat this situation he goes on a world trip for 1 month, of which is the main part of his story. I don't know about you but I was dying to know what happened with his girlfriend but he never finished that part so we were left in limbo. Dave Jory did one I didn't know about his trip on a tour bus to the Devils Marbles with his wife. They had stopped for an arranged lunch when some crazy druggie couldn't bludge a sandwich, so he grabbed a knife and threatened Dave. Frozen from not knowing what to do his wife stepped in and disarmed him. Our host stepped in and did a short story based on the same subject when he got punched in a mugging when a Islander sidled up to him on the premise he wanted a cigarette. Luckily his friends came along and the guy fled. Marc Carra told the story of how his email account got hacked, when most people on his email contacts list got offensive emails supposedly sent by him. This damaged a lot of friendships and job opportunities. The internet is a dangerous place and the easiest way to let people in, which most people don't realise, is at the terminal you are using, and when you use a public internet café and forget to sign-out you are open to all kinds of trouble. Even though there was no official theme for the night, like a Story Club show, I surmised afterward that all the stories had a common thread as they were all about when people attack us even though we have done nothing wrong, which kind of depressed me later that night as it feels like all the people on the planet are trying to screw everyone else. The actual show was nice but it did make you think about humanity when you reflected back. 3.5
Why is Sidney anonymous ?
Sidney is a couple dollars short of a Asperger's clinic, ie, not a people person. This is one case where "it's not you it's me" being true, sorry if it annoys. If Sidney wasn't anonymous this wouldn't exist and the reason why is in the Why blog
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03.06.10 : Sam Tripoli(USA) - Nikki Lynn Katt(USA) - TV pilot : Laugh Garage
A large crowd turned up and they were in the mood to have fun, maybe too much fun. This was a recording for a TV pilot and first up was Darren Sanders who killed it again. Next up was a new guy that I haven't seen before, and unfortunately forgot to remember his name, maybe Josh or Jeff. He only did a short spot but he was good also. He had those unexpected punchlines, but kind of perverted ones. Last in the first bracket was Nikki Lynn Katt. It looked like Sydney's Nikki Lynn Katt fan club turned up because they were going off at the rudeness of her songs. It's always difficult for a musical act to impress me because of the 1000's of singers I have seen, and mainly female ones, so musical acts are always going to be a problem for me, but I did like it better the second time around because the dialogue to song ratio was better for me. She finished with a sing along, that the audience were happy to join in to by singing the chorus "Don't forget about the balls". Even I must of been affected because it stuck in my head, as I was singing it next morning. By the second half the crowd had got pretty raucous, not bad raucous more American hooting and hollering raucous, so when Sam Tripoli came up he had to work for it. It didn't really affect anyone, as the comedians just powered through it by ignoring it, but Sam had to change his technique by sticking to his routine and not leaving gaps for the crowd to butt in, which unfortunately left no time for those pauses that he uses to make ridiculous assumptions about people in the audience. All in all I think everyone had a good time. 4.5
02.06.10 : Make way for Ducklings(An Original Sketch Comedy Show) : Hermann's Bar - sketch
It was good to see big turnouts this year with crowds doubling, and why wouldn't it with another good show from the Project 52 gang. We started off with the very funny, for those in the know, about the fictitious comedy troupe from the rival, UNSW, called "Move aside for goslings", which setup their Gypsy Kings-Bamba Laya joke if a sketch didn't go well. The ones that I found funniest was the CyberHackers with computer experts mixing up computer lingo, the simple but clever SexCat, the small Captain Planet spoof, and the Little Red Riding Hood one with the great prosopagnosia joke. Unfortunately I don't think many people knew what it meant, as I was the only laughing at this point, maybe if it was worded by it's common name like, the "Face Blindness disorder, prosopagnosia", everyone would have got it and learnt something, but that's what these shows are for to work out stuff. The good sketches were the Joseph in Bethlehem, like the Red Riding Hood one was an old story that we know but done with 21st century reasoning, saying that Mary can't ride the donkey because she might have a miscarriage. The Queen's speech about the Union Jack, the English clergy sacrificing their women to the Vikings, the Dino-Saurgeons arguing with the nurse shark, the coining of the phrase "The Captain goes down with the ship", the reason James Bond 007 always get another girl in the next movie, and the intervention with the Pringle obsessive. Other worthy mentions was the Queen's talking mirror and the riddle, most of the rest were nice. The show wasn't blistering but it was good. Sketch must be difficult because out of all the sketch shows I have seen only a couple were blistering anyway, and they were Ducklings ones as well. It started at 4 lulled to 3.5 and then went 4.5 in the second half. 4
01.06.10 : Full Body Contact No Love Tennis fundraiser for Susie : Roxbury Hotel - impro
We had the usual 3 teams doing 19 minutes each but with 1 team doing the 19 minutes in one block while the other 2 did 3 separate stories each, but with them alternating. Lee Naimo & Simon Greiner's first story was about explorers looking for adventure with an Indiana Jones character being whisked away but an alien. Then the very funny parking space with Lee being arrested for the new crime of pedoarrest. And then finally the super funny weightlifting BO scene with the battle of the Schwarzenegger accents. Jason Dunn & Steve Kimmens did something similar to a truth scene about houses. The deserved winners of the trophy was Susie Youssef & Amanda Buckley doing the very funny roller-skate scene with both taking on accents from the deep south, gotta love the accents that made a funny scene funnier. The ridiculously funny waiting for someone scene with Susie constantly badgering poor Amanda. And the nice office scene. 4
01.06.10 : Prince Of Persia - The Sands Of Time - movie
Action, Adventure, Fantasy : The king of Persia takes in an orphan and raises him like his one of his sons. When he grows up he goes into battle against a supposed foe, against his better judgement, and then goes on a quest to safeguard an ancient dagger that can reverse time. It's another movie where the hero doesn't live up to expectations, like Clash of the Titans, and the rest of the movie doesn't have any spark to it. Watchable but nothing to shout about. 2.5 maybe 3
29.05.10 : Allan Glover : Laugh Garage
I wasn't expecting much, because most of the comics are repeats for me, but then again nearly everyone is a repeat for me. I haven't seen Allan for a while and I wasn't doing anything so I went. There's just something about a Saturday night here that always produces a ripper show, and tonight was no exception. We started with Paul Warnes as our host doing his usual paced delivery. He leaves these pauses between jokes so you can hear the audiences brains ticking over. First you would hear a delayed laugh, and then another, and another, all dotted about in different parts of the room, and after a while everyone would get it and laugh. Paul did a very good job and his polite handling of hecklers was very nice. When Oliver Phommavanh started he burst on the scene with a great routine, now a couple of year latter he has so much material he can do a main spot, and because he has that much stuff he can mix it up so each time he performs it's different and never regimented. Tonight he was excellent. What a difference a week makes, Tony Bailey killed it, with his wife jokes being very popular. Last up was Allan Glover. Every time I have seen him he has been good, and so was tonight. He did some pome bashing, and his chainsaw impressions brought the house down. Excellent show 4.5
28.05.10 : The FINAL Choose Your Own Adventure Show : Roxbury Hotel - impro
This show had a different spin, in that the audience picked which direction they wanted the show to go. Miss Amanda Buckley was our host and did a good job. As Hollywood Brett Sheargold would say, "She's working harder that a ugly stripper". Not only did she have to host, she also had to direct, she had to stop the scenes when appropriate, come up with 2 different scenarios, get the audience to vote, and hype up the crowd. She was so involved she was more like another player. The story was about a guy on a fist pumping time machine looking for Atlantis and unfortunately stopping in the wrong places and meeting a cow princess, a king that cuts peoples heads off and sh_ts in their skulls, and finally to the underwater world of Atlantis. Our prompt was echelon of adventure, unfortunately no one knew what echelon meant, and even I couldn't explain it, so I looked it up this mourning and it's a stepped line or tiered line, like "Corruption reached to the highest echelons of Parliament". Standout of the night was Michael Hing, who showed trepidation initially, but when he came out everything he said got laughs. 3.5
28.05.10 : The Losers - movie
Action, Adventure, Crime : Members of an elite U.S. Special Forces unit are sent into Bolivia on a search and destroy mission. They find themselves the target of a lethal betrayal instigated from inside by a powerful enemy known only as Max. Crap on the highest plane, and the ridiculous notion there may be a sequel is laughable. It feels like a clone movie, like when the A-Team script was handed around someone read it and wrote another movie loosely based on it, but different, and then quickly shot the movie so it would be released first. I'm glad I didn't have to pay for this but I still paid with destroyed brain cells. 0
26.05.10 : Story Club and Fist Fights With Nature : Hermann's Bar
Tonights theme, as the title suggests, are times when mother nature has conspired against us. I think she also conspired against me tonight with the rain and the flu, so if I'm out of form that's why, and also these show are now podcast so I won't have to be that descriptive anymore.
We are greeted by Kirk Douglas singing "A Whale of a Tale", as Captain Ben Jenkins starts our journey with a nice little tale of the first time he went wild pig shooting. Guns are very easy to use, and unlike what Hollywood would suggest that guns aren't accurate, because bullets always miss the hero, they can be quite easy to control and be accurate, unless the sights haven't been setup by some cockeyed knuckle like my friend. City slickers feel remorse when killing a living thing, even horrid ones, so Ben's aim ended up being compromised when he felt empathy, and instead of putting the pig out of it's misery he just made things worst.
Vijay Khurana's Malaysian mountain climbing adventure with his father was a bit serious but still nice. It told of him reflecting on his behaviour, at feeling uncomfortable, and then angry at the slow pace when he had to help his father walk the distance. For my generation this is the norm, sons were always removed from their fathers, and that is typical ingrained behaviour of the strict parent and the testosterone filled young loin. It does subside with age, unfortunately usually over 40. Only the newer generations have experienced the cool understanding father scenarios.
Molly Lewis's tales from America, and more specifically Los Angeles, was brilliant and the funniest of the night with equal applause to the best on the night. She told about the superficially of LA, like the totally preventable first world problems that are ridiculous but real problems now. She went on to tell of how she was the first person in L.A. to be attacked by the deadly African Crested Porcupine, even though there are none in the U.S. Because she was from America she had a different slant on what we would experience here which made the story very compelling.
Rachel Corbett's toilet plugging adventure was very funny. I don't know what it is about girls but I have heard a lot of similar stories from them. I thought everyone knew about the form a plug with lots of layers of paper so it acts like a plunger when you flush.
Steph Iredale's trek to the top of a mountain in Morocco with some doggy guides was also very good.
Max Rapley's story was about getting lost on a camping trip and having to resort to extreme measures. I did catch on to the pun before the end but it was still nice.
Alex Lee's High School adventure to a pseudo rain forest was hilarious and got the biggest applause for the night. This story also had the Alex Lee exaggerated fictitious scenario charm that she uses to such good effect, brilliant.
Ms Zoe Norton Lodge's tale was about her ineptitude at looking after pets, resulting in a long line of their corpses trailing behind her. It wasn't as crazy funny as her other stories but still excellent.
The girls did it again with Alex, Molly and Zoe standing out, and for the boys I liked Ben's story the best, but even the others ranged from good to very good. 4
25.05.10 : Full Body Contact No Love Tennis 4 Cancer Research : Roxbury Hotel - impro
I was complaining lately that there wasn't enough crazy characters with crazy accents, well tonight they saturated the stories with them making the night super funny. Amanda Buckley was our host and was nice, but it was the second half that we learned a bit about her work life and that she must hold the craziest person in the building award, but in a nice way. We started with a all-in "What If" song. The improvisers would came up with loony "What if" lines with Amanda adding comments in between to make it funnier.
I was a bit shocked when Alex Lee and Pat Magee got "World Peace" as their theme, sounded boring to me, but they did a brilliant job. That's what good improvisers do, make the hard ones work. They initially ignored the theme and used a chair as the prompt, and then brought in "World Peace" when it would fit, very clever. The story was about a guy who ordered a lot of chairs to sell on World Peace Day, but no one was buying them. Concluding that they were too hard and needed cushions he and his assistant went on a journey to find some. With the guy getting lost on a bus the female assistant continued on find an elevator driver, who took her to the cushion floor. There she meets the crazy stripy cushion and uses him to hunt down the evil cushion. She eventually blows herself and everything up with her detonator hat leaving only the stripy cushion, who went on to lead a cushioney life. It was like some sort of pantomime adventure to rival the bizarreness of Alice in Wonderland. Pat Magee was great at coming up with a new exaggerated characters for every scene, and Alex also coming up with good ones and some clever ideas. The funniest part was when Alex sat on Pat(acting as a cushion). I don't think he could breath and had to politely ask her to get off. The story was really funny and I laughed the most at this one.
Next up was the "Having a Bad Hair Day" story, that was equally funny. Steen Raskopoulos shaved part of his hair off and then suited up with guns Rambo style. When his mother knocked on the door shouting Lauchlan he quickly put them away. After she left he went on a quest to find his father, who had disappeared when he was young. What he didn't know was his mother was some sort of a spy. He passes a ditsy secretary on his way to the CEO office and then goes to different countries like Cuba, South Africa, France and Germany, all with accompanying accents, and finally meets his father the CEO. All the accents from the different countries and the wacky characters were hilarious. The funniest part was when Steen wanted Susie Youssef to come up with the next part of the story, but she bounced it back saying that he should explain the next bit, but to get back at her he gave her an imaginary note explaining the next part of the plot and that she should read it out, but she bounced it back saying he should read it out so it's clear, so to get back at her he said he would read it out but read it in Cuban gibberish, which ended up with neither of them being any wiser, very funny interplay.
The next team did a Star Wars memorabilia auction where they broke the light sabre, which was the main sales piece. Benny Davis did a remarkable job weaving in augmented versions of movie themes.
Carlo Ritchie is the king of the ranting monologue and again he used it to it's funniest best with his shiv carrying escaped prisoner in the freedom story. There were a number of different stories running concurrently that were inspired by the previous ones, so it chopped and changed between them in short parts. The prisoners stopped in a strawberry field, which inspired them to the next scene with an old English strawberry field Barron, and then on to various scenes with Carlo always trying to kill Ben Jenkins with a shiv. Also a very funny set with lots of exaggerated characters, like Ben's excellent English Barron and Carlo's crazy taxi driver murderer, just to name a few. There were a couple 5 scenes but I score impro pretty strictly. 4.5
25.05.10 : I Love You Too - movie
Comedy : A couple split up after 3½ years when the guy can't say "I love you". I was a bit shocked and surprised when this Australian movie didn't suck. Most of the Australian movies I have seen sucked, and counting the number that were good I would have trouble using all the fingers on one hand, so I was expecting the same, but right at the start the movie had laughs. I was so confused that an Australian movie could be funny that I forced myself not to laugh. Soon after it went into nice mode with some more laughs in places and then finished touching. 3.5
22.05.10 : Sam Tripoli(USA) - Nikki Lynn Katt(USA) : Laugh Garage Riverside Theatre
Tony Bailey hosted and had a hard time getting a response from a initially reserved audience, maybe he is a regular and the crowd have heard his stuff, but eventually he broke through with the tried and tested stuff. First up was Sam Tripoli with all guns blazing and whipped the audience into a frenzy right from the start. He did the tried and tested pick on the audience with exaggerated snap decisions of what he was seeing, but ruder and funnier. There was 3 young guys sitting together in the front row, so he quickly came up with that they must be a boy band, and when he saw another 3 young guys sitting together, he said they must be in a rival boy band. But because they new each other, he said do you guys have boy band sing offs where the winners get to f__k the losers. He picked on an old guy with a moustache that got the usually reserved old set laughing. He tried to pick up a foxy MILF in the corner and tried to get free accommodation from a guy in the audience. His material is not Jimbo rude but still is fairly rude and he covered a lot of sex type content, which is popular with the young people, and told about his weird girlfriends and peoples secret perverted fetishes. He also covered how black guys are more forward when chasing girls and that he liked thicker(curvy) girls. The crowd went nuts for Sam and he was so funny that his slot just rushed past making it feel short, even though it wasn't. I think the crowd and I wanted more. The crowd were so impresses that they had a chat with him at the break. 5
The second half was the pretty Nikki Lynn Katt. I know attractiveness shouldn't be a factor but it is, popular actors are usually the pretty ones, so just the appearance can warm you to a person, and it does with Nikki. Her set were all songs but of a rude nature, like the vagina song, the boyfriend song, chlamydia song, fellatio song, etc. She started off good and was good in places but mainly delightful and nice. Unfortunately all of her material is very similar and there was nothing to break it up like spoken dialogue or stories. Her set was fine until the last song about herpes, the third about STD's, that felt a bit repetitious and tiring, and that's where she lost the crowd. If it ended one song earlier I would give it a 4 but from what I saw 3.5
22.05.10 : Good News Week recording for 24.05.10 : ABC Studios Ultimo
I woke up this morning with a sore hand from clapping, that's the sacrifice you make to be in the audience. The show usually starts with Paul and Mickey getting the crowd into laughing mode. Mikey was good but Paul took a while to get going , as evident by his jokes not working, but after 10 minutes he found his form when he started picking on the audience. We stated with Paul's opening dialogue about a Ninja school in Australia that was hilarious, you have to hand it to the writers and Paul's great delivery. Mikey's team had Cal Wilson and Matt Preston(Masterchef), and Claire's team was George Calombaris(Masterchef) and Corinne Grant, who revealed to us she peed in a rock-pool at the end of a TV shoot for some program. Matt pressed George when he asked him what a "Bench Fat" was, and he tried to skirt around it but eventually told us it's the erection cooks get from always brushing against benches that are at groin height. All night they went back and refereed to the bench fat joke. Mikey's "Strange But True" clue had Kattie Noonan singing the Beatles, I Want To Hold Your Hand, and Claire's song was sung by Ian Moss, who told us Cold Chisel may reform to do a few big shows. The next section was a new one with plates of food that give you hints to the identity of famous people, like large pig ears and a cooked Budgie, which signified Tony Abbott. Unfortunately a lady in the audience thought she was a game show constant and shouted out the answer, and continued to annoy Paul on numerous occasions, which was great fun for us because Paul has these good comebacks. The show kind of slowed down here because they hired chefs to be comedians and having 2 of them wasn't a good idea. Matt was OK-ish but nothing George did was funny. Luckily it picked up again with the "So You Think You Can Mime" game, with Mikey doing the mime for his team and the Umbilical Brothers doing it for Claire. Mikey and Corinne were the funniest of the night, Cal and Claire were a bit quite, Matt and George tried but weren't that funny. Since they record so much and the set writing was very good there will be enough to be entertaining . The show started brilliantly but had a lull in the middle but rallied to be nice most of the way. 4
PS They cut one whole game with Cal and Corinne where they had to choose from multiple choice questions.
21.05.10 : Epicure-Quietly into the Night : Annandale Hotel - music
I have seen a few band call it quits at the Annandale in my time and now another joins that sad club. I'm not a big Epicure fan but I know some of their stuff and like it, but I was a bit surprised at how many songs I knew, even though I don't own an album. There was a problem with the sound, Juan's vocals were perfect in the quiet songs but in the loud stuff he had to push his voice so he could be heard, so it went out of key sometimes, but only people with extra thick earplugs would notice that. Funny point of the night was when Juan said happy birthday to Lisa and the crowd broke out an impromptu rendition of Michael Jacksons Happy Birthday Lisa from the Simpsons. The band was good and did a great 1½ hour send off. 4
21.05.10 : The Backup Plan - movie
Comedy, Romance : An independent woman has lost all hope of ever finding Mr Right and goes it alone to be a single mother. She visits the IVF clinic and meets a guy on the same day. It has some laughs, but spaced pretty far apart, and it's the two slow spots where you start thinking how preposterous this would be in real life, but that's Hollywood for you. It was OK but if the fat was trimmed it would score slightly higher. 3
19.05.10 : TheatreSports - Awesome Manning Laugh Time Night Show : Manning Bar - impro
The first half was conventional Theatresports with 4 teams of 4 people. Steen Raskopoulos was our host and he does a great job trying to get reactions from a crowd that's hard to impress. He asked for a lot of prompts for the players, which helps them by having more things to choose from, and it also gets the stand-offish crowd involved.
I was looking forward to innovative improvising, like the shows at the end of last year, and this show was going along nicely, but it felt like it was missing the clever stuff, and that's when I realised most of the players are new, because I didn't recognise many. One funny scene was a fictitious promotional trailer with Jack the Ripper and giant scorpions making love, someone must have seen Clash of the Titans. There was a Star Wars pod race scene by 2 members of a team while the other 2 watched, but couldn't hear it because they were wearing iPods. They had to try to reproduce the scene without actually knowing what it was about, they came up with some type of Jesus Biblical story. There was a good typewriter scene with elephant riding. In the last scene each player had a secret trigger for an action they had to do, so when they stumbled upon their individual trigger players would breakout into the song, All the Single Ladies, or start break-dancing, etc. The team that won was the best team and the most experienced. There were no dead scenes and if some of the player have only been doing this for a couple months they did a nice job.
The second half was the experienced players doing a new game that they trialled once at Hermann's. The audience gave prompts by writing on a large blank sheet during the break. The show started with players reading off lines written, or pictures drawn, with each remembering the ones they liked so they could use it as inspiration for scenes. It's a bit like Puppy Fight with short random scenes except most aren't as short, so they are a bit more cohesive. They did about 24 scenes in the 50 minutes so it went past so fast I have trouble remembering most. There was a contest where someone had to chose between Brain or Brian, a Turkish bath, phallus's, clown ninjas, a funeral, and Lovecraft. I thought it was nice but I liked some of the stuff from last night better. The crowd sounded like they gave it a 4.
18.05.10 : Full Body Contact No Love Tennis : Roxbury Hotel - impro
Ben Jenkins was good as our host and is always energetic so if some of his puns don't work his energy makes it good again.
We opened up with a nice scene with horse food as the inspiration. A woman who's family was murdered joins up with a reluctant man who had his horse murdered to form a posse to chase down the 2 or 7 murders. It ends with a big gunfight and the reluctant man's fears come true when he is killed.
Next was a subtle but ridiculously funny scene with Amanda Buckley and Susie Youssef. Two workers meet at a water-cooler with one fearing she is pregnant and the other clumsily trying to help. This one is going to be hard to explain as the story seems simple but it was all the subtleties that made it funny. Amanda played a well meaning, bubbly, optimistic, but annoying character, Susie played the character straight and serious, but her trying to combat the annoying character was funny in it's self. In some places her attack was so vitriolic that you could hear a pin drop, as it was so scathing, and even Benny Davis stop playing to accentuate the effect, but Amanda's character was always able to wiggle her way back into her heart like nothing happened. The funniest part was when she gave feminine hygiene advice. Susie was looking down so Amanda thought she was sick and started rattling off diseases until she got to cystitis, and gave her advice on how to prevent it by saying "always wipe front to back". I couldn't believe she said that and nearly feel off my seat from laughter, and then she just kept repeating it until about the third time when the audience got it and cracked right up. It's hard to explain the subtlety how Amanda just goes off on this tangent monologue that can be delivered straight, but with ridiculous words, or she can deliver a line or half line and then uses exaggerated physical expressions or body language to exaggerate it, or give it a different meaning. It's like she talks so much, says so little, but it means so much. There is this crazy balance between the two like when Amanda says something crazy all Susie has to do is stare her down without saying a word and you know exactly what she is saying, but Amanda just continues and tries to break her resolve.
The 2nd last scene was the Steen Raskopoulos and Carlo Ritchie show. It was the story of a Nanny giving advice to a shy guy on a date. These guys also have some special interplay between them but it's more competition based, which is what guys do, in that they try to out do each other. Steen started straight away in attack mode and tried to dominate the scene with ridiculous statements to put Carlo off, but Carlo is usually good natured and goes along with it until half way when he called one of Steen bluffs. Steen insisted Carlo to sit down but Steen had his foot on the chair blocking it's access, so Carlo called his bluff and wiggled his way onto the seat and sat on Steen's foot. Then latter when Steen went off stage on some tangent and left Carlo to fend for himself Carlo just grabbed the scene and went on some crazy rant that stole the show.
The all-in had a guy who could charm his teacher by playing his musical instrument, a French guy in a café that didn't care, and a shy guy playing hard to get too well. It fluctuated between 4 and 3 so I will give it a 3.5
18.05.10 : Letters to Juliet - movie
Adventure, Comedy, Drama : A girl whose boyfriend is obsessed with his restaurant is left to wander the streets of Italy when she finds a 50 year old love letter addressed to Juliet asking for her help. She writes a reply and is surprised when the letter writer appears with her grandson to look for her lost love and so embark on a journey to find him. The story is pretty much what the preview shows, and because I wasn't expecting much I wasn't disappointed when there wasn't much to the story. Definitely no com in this rom-com, and not much rom either, more or less you just sit emotionless. It's a bit mild and not a roller-coaster of emotions. 2.5
16.05.10 : Smack the Panda : Roxbury Hotel - impro
Finally a good Smack the Panda show, and all it took was one good improviser in the form of Rebecca De Unamuno to make everyone come alive. They used all the tricks in the book with silly characters, silly voices, and silly stories, which made it funny. There was one story with a everyday construction worker that made all the wrong sound effects when working, all employees had to make the sound effect of the tool they were using. All his hammering and sawing were very high pitched and squeaky, and were so against work practices that the union representative had to come in and sack him, but when he went to ring is lawyer his pressing of the phones buttons sound effects were so correct for the task that he found his calling. The second section had the theme of death and reanimation, with a story about bringing back to life of a mothers young daughter, but Bek played her so annoyingly that her mother shot her in the face with a shotgun. There were scenes in a graveyard during a burial where corpses came to life and joined in the conversation. It was quite entertaining and nice 3.5
16.05.10 : Blank the Musical : Roxbury Hotel - impro
Unfortunately the Blank crew didn't fair that well this time. It think it stemmed from the suggested word "Wood", I felt it didn't have that many options as even I was scratching my head as to what you could come up with for wood. What we got was a hippie tied to a tree who somehow got impregnated by wood, Jesus nailed to a cross with arms outstretched all night, and a door to door purveyor of religion who knocked on a wooden door. Our religious salesperson went on to be somewhat surprised to being allowed into the house to sell her wares, but God and Satan were manipulating the house owner to tempt the religious seller away from religion but into playing board games, games are the work of the devil. We got some tree puns and a God pun with him playing hide and seek but him cheating by looking through the holes in his hands while he was counting. We had God playing a game of Guess Who but with his hands stilled nailed to the cross, and a game of UNO with ridiculously large cards. There were some high points and an enthusiastic crew but not enough wacky characters with wacky voices or adventurous stories. It was OK, just a bit low on laughs for a laugh junkie. 3
15.05.10 : 3 Stripe Avenue - music
I hadn't heard of these guys before but they were playing nearby so I went to their MySpace page and they sounded good, a bit like Kisschassy. Unfortunately they only played covers instead of their original songs, that explains why this gig wasn't on their gig guide, it was one of those gig that they have to play to support themselves. Overall they are pretty competent musicians and played very tightly but I was after originals. 3
14.05.10 : Robin Hood - movie
Action, Adventure, Drama : We all know the well worn tale of Robin Hood, but this ain't it. It's the prequel story, more like a Robin Hood Begins. The new story is interesting enough and is based around actual facts of history but manipulated enough to make the story interesting. Out of the 3 big Russell Crowe history based movies, of which Gladiator I thought was good, and Master & Commander, which I thought was better, this one would be last, but I wouldn't say it was bad it still was OK. Can't help but notice the similarities with Gladiator with a average soldier being the hero. 3.5
12.05.10 : Janeane Garofalo & Greg Behrendt : SOH
Two good comedians, 2 hours of comedy, and a lot of laughs, what's not to like. They both came out on stage and flipped a coin with Janeane winning so she went first with her 1 hour set. I wanted to see Janeane Garofalo because I have seen her in comedy movies, so even if she's not that funny I can still say I saw a celebrity. The word I was getting was that her jokes are political and sarcastic, what is termed "edgy", which usually means for me that it's not funny, but it was nothing like that. Most of her stuff was good old laugh out loud comedy about everyday stuff. She had a very small political section about Obama's health care reform, and racists, but it was like only one line about each, she was nothing like those comedians that go on, and on, and on with their political agendas. She did a bit about getting old and having to wear support undergarments and exaggerated to what it was holding in place, like if it wasn't for this garment her ovaries would drag on the road. I love it when comedians exaggerate scenarios where each description is more ludicrous than the last. She told a bit about her life, that she has been living with a guy and has lost interest in sex and is now A-sexual, and believes in science rather than religion. She did a bit about being hopeless with computers, and doesn't understand new mannerisms associated with modern technology, which made her appearance on the TV show 24 as a computer expert a bit strange. Her big finish was about meeting Natalie Portman, and her being so perfect that she doesn't have any bodily functions, which was so funny I was seeing spots. It was a little disjointed because she just did 4 comedy nights in a row in the US and had just left the LA club she was performing in and went straight to the airport and flew over arriving at 6am then doing interviews and then straight to this show, so there were after-jokes from subjects already covered that she had to add latter, when she remembered them, because they were so funny. Even though they were peppered throughout the night it wasn't hard to rewind your brain to place them in their proper place, and yes they were very funny and worth hearing, and after all this was just a preview. Most of her spot was a 4 with 4.5 peaks in places and a big 5 at the end, so an overall 4.5.
Next was Greg Behrendt, he's one of the famous people you or I have never heard of. He is co-author of the book, He's Just Not That Into You, based on a line he wrote for a character on Sex And The City. He started about being old and going to rock concerts and even though the face didn't click his routine did, I must have seen a You-Tube or comedy special lately. He next did a Australian section about our biscuits and lollies, proclaiming Tim Tam's are like heroin. He went on to explain how he got this job, mainly because he wasn't good at anything else, and then covered odd ball jobs in the world. He also explained how he got the job in Sex And The City, with the show having 7 women and 2 gay writers he was the only one with a male perspective, and then how the book came about. He finished on a hilarious story about how he had a pseudo strength contest in a gym with John Krasinski from The Office, because his wife fancied him. It was so funny everyone was choking. Even though he is unknown here he will surprise you throughout with a very funny routine. 5
11.05.10 : Comedy Festival Showcase : Comedy Store
Chris Radburn was a bit subdued as host, but because there were so many performers he probably didn't want to take up too much time. Cecil Brown did some songs and was ok. Umit Bali added some new stuff and got good applause. Amanda Grey, who has been missing for a while, turned up and did a very good set. The first half ended with Anthony Salame, who was also good. The second half started with Rhys Nicholson with his new exaggerated ruder routine and killed it. Dave Jory was subtle but brilliant again. The main attraction for me was Tony Woods (USA). He killed it last year and I was looking forward to him even though this would be an abbreviated set compared to his 1 hour show from last year. He started with his drunk act again, which was ok, but it was after that that he really got going. He did his seducing and loving of a little person(midget) routine. It's so contradictory and probably not very PC, but it is funny. He would describe all the loving sexy moments between them but refer to her as the midget, so it's kind of sweet and derogatory at the same time. He did some Australian observation jokes but because of time restraints couldn't do his very funny Australian zoo stuff. Good night. 4.5
09.05.10 : A bit shocked today as you people pushed this blog to 12th Top Blog and 1st in category.
09.05.10 : Hannah Gabsby - The Cliff Young Shuffle : Enmore Theatre
This show is so different compared to the her previous blistering funny Tasmanian Lesbian routine. In that one she is very subdued and dead-pan but super funny, in this one she is more alive and animated but not as funny. The story is about her trying to emulate Cliff Young's running effort by walking across England. Where's Cliff was 60 years old and ran 800km to win the first Sydney to Melbourne ultra marathon she was going to cover half the distance and at half the age, and because Cliff doesn't actually run but shuffle along, similar to Hannah walking, she surmised that she could do it just on a whim. She covered all the reasons to not do it, like all the injuries she has had just doing simple everyday things, like falling off a 3 step stairway and breaking her hand so badly that the bones had to be fused together, her shoulder surgery from planting a shrub, and others. She covered her state of mind and her depression that was telling her to not do it, and her lack of experience with anything physical, being somewhat of a couch potato. She had every excuse in the book to talk her out of it yet she still did it. Everyday was shear hell, and she quit everyday, yet continued. I wasn't bored, and it was somewhat captivating and could follow it quite well, but it felt very word heavy and only smiley funny, and I was looking for super funny. By halfway I could see why she was complaining on Twitter about her sore throat, because there are so many words in the story. Every possible aspect was thoroughly examined for every possible scenario, probably overly so. And some aspects seemed to repeat throughout the show, but worded differently. The crowd cheered at the end like a 4-4.5 but for me it was 3.5.
So this ends the festival so we can all go back to a less hectic schedule.
09.05.10 : Shenanigans : Factory Theatre - sketch
I saw one of the Shenanigans videos and it was amusing so I thought I would try the show. I was expecting tightly packed show with sketch after sketch, like Comicide or Ducklings, but it was a very relaxed delivery with videos between the sketches. It was kind of weird because there was 3 live sketches, a stand-up routine, an introduction and about 10 videos. I was wondering why they came all the way to Sydney when only half the show is live, they could have just sent a video. Another weird thing was that the show felt very short, even though it went the full hour, yet I was yawning near the end. Maybe it lacked meaty material. But in defence of the show the videos were so loud, a problem with this room and me, so much so that I had to wear earplugs, thereby loosing the natural laugh track from the audience, and making it less funny for me. And also because of the previous late night I may have been tired. It wasn't all bad, the intro video with the wrestler running all the way to this venue was good. The video about the Shenanigans time travelling to the future and becoming rich because of the show ideas they stole from the past was good. The Seinfeld copy called Wakefeld was very funny. The live scene with the manager was good because the character was played so well. Due to the problems I was having it felt like a 2.5 but the crowd cheered enough to produce a 3.5 so I will split it at 3.
08.05.10 : Late Night Features with Funny Little Creatures : Factory Theatre
There wasn't much actual description of what this show was about so I assumed it would be stand-ups doing short spots, so when I spotted Rhys Nicholson while waiting outside for the show to start I thought, "it must be stand-up if he is here". Rhy's routine is very good but because I have seen it so many times I said to myself "Oh well I will just have to endure it again". After being seated inside Tahir came out to host, and then it hit me, the only stand-ups in the area are from shows that I have seen this week. I was ruing my decision that I just blew $20, and was wishing I was upstairs watching Ultimate Board Game again, but unfortunately it was too late. Tahir did a small spot but didn't use any of the jokes that he used in Slumwog two days earlier, so it ended up rather good. We next had the UK impressionist from Slumwog, he added some more characters and was quite nice, but a bit worrying because of all the repeat performers I thought I was about to see. Then things looked even worst when Deanne Smith came out. She was pretty hyper and only did one story from last night with the rest of the set doing stories from last years show making it a good set. She did her "No worries" song from last night but because it's so long and complicated and still new to me it was funny again. Rhys was next but his usual routine was ramped up to 11 with his usual jokes amplified with more over the top acting and descriptions that made them even ruder and astronomically funny. His Predator face vagina had people on the floor dying from laughing. Rhys must of been in a happy mood, unlike when you ring him at the Enmore box office, because he hammed it right up when he ran through the crowd looking for "that bitch", as he put it, that had returned after walking out just before his set started. Anthony Salame came out but he only did 5 minutes of repeats from his performance on Thursday, all the rest was the good material from from his earlier shows that I haven't seen for a while, and had me and the audience cracking up with laughter. And then a big shock for me, in the form of Nick Sun, but this time he really cranked it up and was very good. Now I see what all the talk and praise has been about because he produced a crazy, wacky, surreal performance. It's so out there and very inappropriate that I don't think he could use it except behind closed doors. Even Tahir was a bit lost at Nick's performance when he came out with a blank expression on his face, you could tell he was shocked when he said to the audience " You have had a good nigh with impressionists, songs, stand-up and (pause) whatever that was", unable to categories Nick's performance. It wasn't over yet with the last act of the night, Marcel Lucont, pronounced LaCunt, that is portrayed as I kind of arrogant French womaniser. I only realised tonight that Marcel is Alexis Dubus. The last time I saw him he was so convincing with the accent and clothing and hair that I though it was 2 different people, and it was only tonight that I realised it was Alexis because he was doing a show down the road. I now kind of feel like a real dope, but I do have trouble recognising faces. Marcel was super suave and smooth and could charm the undies off any girl, which made his character super funny, and as a stir he crowd surfed his was to the back exit. Unfortunately when he got to the gap in the isle there was no one to support him so he went head first off the edge of the seats, but he did a Maxual Smart impression and quickly got up and brushed himself off giving the ridiculous impression that that didn't just happen. The late night really brought out the rude and extreme side of the comics and everyone cut loose and push it to the limit making it a super funny show that had us in stitches. 4.5
08.05.10 : ABBAlanche : Revesby Workers - music
You could tell it was Mothers Day tomorrow with the place full, about 500 people, of which most were mothers and daughters. Things went nuts when the ABBA girls told the audience to come to the front and dance to Mama Mia. All these middle aged mothers ran out and started pushing kids out of the way to pump out their best ABBA moves. During Money Money Money Agnetha and Anni-Frid sung while walking through the audience handing out chocolate coins. They really hammed up the Swedish parts with over the top accents and them being fake Swedes. Too much drum and bass where I was, in front of the speakers, so it drowned out the vocals. 2.5
07.05.10 : Ultimate Board Game Unscripted : Factory Theatre - impro
We had some big names tonight, and everyone did a good job, and the show was good, but unfortunately no one really stepped up to make it blistering. Since Grant Davies was present the night quickly degraded to smut with the Thor and the cock shaped clouds scene. We had the fun Guess Who game using the actual audience to play the pop up faces of the game, and by process of elimination the last person standing was chosen to do the drawing for the Pictionary game. This time we actually got a somewhat decent drawing, if you call a one legged rake footed Mexican sheriff with a camel toe and no arms decent, at least it produced a very funny scene. The Cluedo game with the super silly murder location and weapon, Bondi Junction Westfield food court and killed with a mackerel, was funny. The murderer was evident from the start, as who else would the audience pick except the biggest ham of the night, Grant. He was quite fetching wearing the French maids apron costume that signified he was Mrs White. The super funny Titanic movie scene was made even funnier when a shoe-box prop was used in place of the iceberg, unfortunately the cast had trouble figuring that out, and when a blue shirt came out depicting the rising water level they were even more confused. The sushi train psychiatrist scene was nice, as was the funny Aussie boyfriend scene. Someone actually brought a game in tonight, but it was some home renovation TV show based game that you would think wouldn't leave many possibilities, but the crew was up to the challenge and produced a nice scene. A nice show 3.5
07.05.10 : Deanne Smith (CAN) - Ballsy : Factory Theatre
When I saw her last year she seemed a bit timid but delightful, this year she was much more in your face with fast talking and heaps of audience interaction, ballsy in fact, hence the title. She said she was going to be more forward and come out of her shell, and to prove it she gave a ridiculously big hype introduction to herself. But she had to admit it was a bit over the top and returned to her somewhat more timid side with a more realistic introduction. She started with her midget story that she did last year but more embellished, and then her acupuncture story, which again I have heard before. She did a very funny audience participation bit where she quickly makes a rash judgement of an audience member by appearance alone, citing the guy in the front row as an ex-con, because of his short hair, and subsequently told prisoner jokes all night at his expense. This year she pull out a ukulele and did some humorous songs. We also learned a bit about lesbian life styles and how hard it is for a girl to instigate sex with their partner. It's actually hard for both of the sexes but that's minor point. The comparing sex to cricket was funny, and the embarrassing presents from her parents to her girlfriends was good. Deanne is more animated and a ruder performer this year, but still has that cutesy charming appeal that makes you want to squeeze her silly. The crowd sounded like they loved her and gave her a big cheer at the end, and would of probably given her a 4 or more, but for me the repeat jokes made it a 3.5.
06.05.10 : Slumwog Millionaire : Factory theatre
I was really worried that the wog joke is well past it's use by date, it certainly seems that way from the Wogboy franchise, but the Fat Pizza crew has made it fun again. They have created a variety show with Bollywood dancers, stand-up, impressions, some videos, and my favourite, sketch comedy. The stand-ups were Anthony Salame, Umit Bali, and Tahir, and all were good but I felt the audience has seen Umit too many times lately so were a bit subdued during his spot. In amongst that was a guy that does impressions. His opening joke was lame but when he got into his 30 impersonations he was brilliant, with each celebrity having a quip that made them funnier. Intermingled with that was the Millionaire sketch with Tahir being a somewhat stupid contestant. The Smarter Than a Wog sketch with 3 contestants, a Indian, a Croatian-Serbian character and an old Lebanese mother. Umit's Indian 7-11 buzzer sound was super funny when you realised what it was. And the crazy bank robbery with Tahir and tall Rocky from Fat Pizza and the craziest Vietnamese that had such a heavy accent that no one knew what he was saying. The Indian taxi driver from Pizza made numerous appearances playing the comedic straight-man and was funny throughout. A lot of fun and a different take on the wog joke. 4
05.05.10 : Story Club and The One That Got Away : Hermann's Bar
Again the girls turned it up a notch which delivered a good show. The charming Mr Ben Jenkins hosted the night, of which he is normally prone to do, but to try something different he opened with a supposedly impromptu discussion with Mark Sutton. As with the theme of the night, "The One That Got Away", they somehow linked fishing, to whales, to Moby Dick, to Orson Wells, proclaiming he was a type of large white whale. Mark took us on a fascinating journey into Orson's urine soaked rabbit filled magic coat that had a lesson for us all, whatever that lesson was. Only kidding, the moral seemed to be a performer is only popular as long as they amuse us, shame but true. I don't know if was having one of those nights but I got lost in places in some stories. I was trialling a system so these blogs will be more accurate but I think I broke my cardinal rule, to enjoy the show first and them worry about recording it afterward. Either way I was a bit confused at the first story by Ben, it felt like something wasn't clear at it's start, but once it got rolling it was nice. The three instalments were delivered at the start to each of the three sections of the show, but unfortunately the last chapter was lost, but was not totally forgotten, and duly improvised on the fly, so still got the laughs. It was the story of a road trip with friends, but taking an detour to a land locked submarine in Holbrook.
James Colley beautiful simple tragedy of unrequited love befitting of a Shakespearian classic, if he was writing about Men in Black, was so touching in the end all the girls sighed at it's poignant beauty. Even I let out a tear as I have never been held by the hand, except for that crazy MILF from Newtown.
David Cunningham's piece was of poems of a bygone era and quite rude in nature, so much so that it may have alienated the female portion of the audience as it was somewhat pertaining them. The first poem about menstruation was more surprising than off-putting because it was written so long ago and is so graphic, but knowing David it could have be fabricated. He then did his beautifully constructed dildo joke, that is more his style of comedy. Unfortunately his last poem was a too long and too subtle for a fool like me so I got lost half way through.
Next was Alistair Magee, who tried a different approach to storytelling that had my mind racing to keep up with the unusual construction. Once I worked out who the Master of the ship was I was fine. He told a tale of the high seas and brave men, well not actually, but a tale of newly licensed captain piloting a houseboat down the Hawkesburry River in choppy conditions. The one thing about boat licenses in my time is you don't even have to go near water to get one, as it's all written, and piloting and underpowered vessel like a houseboat against a mild current would even scare me if I was inexperienced.
Michael Hing was at his hyperactive best in his tale of lost love. It was a tale of misunderstanding after misunderstanding culminating in the eventual lost of what seemed true love. On numerous occasions he could have found love with a reoccurring meeting with a certain special girl, but factors kept them apart, and when he found the special note that she had left for him it was too much for the audience of girls to bare as they let out a collective OH.
Steph Iredale's story was like a bombshell with her story of Matt. She had known him for years when suddenly he disappeared, just when thing were starting to happen between them, unfortunately his telephone message was never returned. Then suddenly another story 7 years later about her in Vietnam appeared. Somehow there was a link between Gwyneth Paltrow, Sliding Doors and the fact the 3 stories were spaced at 7 year intervals. But I think the audience was still stunned, at the Matt story, that left us hanging as to what actually happened, there were so many questions left unanswered that our minds had to fill. This mystery was a stunning shock that gave her the biggest applause of the night.
Zoe Norton-Lodge constructed another beautiful piece covering a number of emotional and factual items she has lost. She put you through the gamete of emotions from happy, to sad, to horrifying, with tales of loss of young love, loss of innocence, when she realised that your own relatives, the ones that should love you, can be as cruel as the devil, and the loss of her wonderful drawing skills. With all the things she has lost she has gained so much more with a beautiful writing skill and impeccable delivery that is very compelling.
For me the night was slightly confusing but still nice, and with the girls stealing the limelight it made it good. 4
04.05.10 : Gina Yashere (UK) : Factory Theatre
I was initially hesitant, because of that fast talking not that funny character she did on the last Lenny Henry show, but I heard good things so I gave it a shot and was happily surprised that her stand-up was nothing like that but very good instead. She has a sassy don't take crap style with great well paced delivery, and just the tone of her voice gives you an impression of what she is thinking. She started with some audience questioning, and you could say somewhat attacked a poor girl in the front row that was wearing a Tutu. I hear that some men find black women a tad aggressive and this seemed like one case. Even though it was funny for a while I felt she picked on her too much, but it was Tutu girl that got the best of that confrontation by not saying a word no matter how hard she was badgered. She did quite a bit about observations she has about Australia, and the funniest was when she went to our Chinese Gardens and found out for $5 you could sample the gardens dressed like a Chinese person, but was surprised when given a Kimono instead, citing us as mild racists because we think that Japanese cloths are all the same as others in Asia. The second half was mainly strange news stories that would be worthy of a Darwin award (People so stupid that they die because of it, citing Darwin's theory of evolution that this is natural selection). She told of that horrendous one when both parents of an new born child leapt into a river to retrieve their drowning dog and with both drowning while leaving the child alone on the river bank. After you get over the initial shock of that story she explains the difference between blacks and whites saying that black people don't get that attacked to pets and wouldn't do that, and also they also don't do water. Her show was quite a surprise and was very good. 4.5
Why is Sidney anonymous ?
Sidney is a couple dollars short of a Asperger's clinic, ie, not a people person. This is one case where "it's not you it's me" being true, sorry if it annoys. If Sidney wasn't anonymous this wouldn't exist and the reason why is in the Why blog
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04.05.10 : Iron Man 2 - movie
Action, Sci-Fi : Billionaire inventor Tony Stark (Iron man) faces pressure from the government, the press, and the public to share his technology with the military. Iron man has always been one of the lesser superheroes, but this franchise has made the character the most interesting out of all of them. There is so much story and character development in this one that the big action fight scene is less interesting than the lead up. 4
01.05.10 : Satan's Workshop : Factory Theatre
This show is definitely not PC because it has that in your face Heath Franklin humour. The show can be quite offensive, if you think that way, but luckily the audience was smart enough to know comedy from real life and weren't really offended. Unlike the audience 2 days ago that thought this was real and was quite offended, so much so that Heath Franklin and Glenn Wool had to come out at the start of subsequent shows to straighten things out. They played 2 characters that are capitalist businessmen who start a sweatshop in a 3rd world country, and they did this in the form of a lecture. Firstly they explained the benefits, to themselves, about being disgustingly rich, which was quite humorous. Glenn claimed that he had a ship, with a pool in it, and a boat in that. They ridiculously exaggerated every scenario to get the maximum effect, so if it wasn't actually funny you still had to laugh at the absurdity of it anyway. Next they explained how you had to get rid of your ethics to be successful, and gave examples. They tried to come over as being nice guys when they stopped the practice of paying poor people to fight for their amusement, but unfortunately for them they replaced the fighting with loving and paid them to have sex in front of them for their amusement. All the scenarios are based on fact so you can't really have a go at them because someone already thought of the despicable acts first. After starting their sweatshop they showed pictures of their valued workers, who were all children under that age of 9, and gave them each a fictitious story about their lives. Each one was lumbered with adult problems, like one was a chain smoker, one was hopped-up on coffee, one was injured in a work related accident but still continued to work, and they went on an on, maybe a little too many as it was a little exhausting at this point. You would be Oh-ing all night at the quite inappropriate scenarios while looking at the cute pictures of kids, with it being so contradictory that you had to laugh and sigh at the same time because of the absurdity. This show is a sarcastic jab at a heinous practice by Western businessmen exploiting unfortunate people in countries were there is no defence against it, it may seem that these people are bad but we are just as guilty because we buy the products, so we can't really fault the show as being that inappropriate when it is exaggerated fact and it's the exaggeration that makes it humorous. 3
01.05.10 : Shane Mauss (USA) : Factory Theatre
This one started better, and he had a lot more jokes, but they were mild and hardly got a response out of me. It did pick up somewhat near the end when he did a send up of phone sex but from the angle of phone sex rape, where he had a mock conversation with another party(Daniel Townes) where one party was forced to imagine something he didn't want to do just by words alone. It was as ridiculous as it was funny. The bad joke competition with Daniel was also OK because Daniel is good. 2.5
01.05.10 : Daniel Sloss (SCO) - Teenage Kicks : Factory Theatre
I was bored. His spot in 60 in 60 was good because he crammed all his jokes into 1 minute, but the cracks in his routine started appearing in his 10 minutes at the Comedy Store with it being very average and a bit sparse, and even more so in this show when the few jokes that he had were stretched out to 1 hour. To the point that he told the same 3 jokes numerous times throughout the night, and one of them was that he would come back to Australia with a proper show because this one is shite. Being young he just doesn't have enough life experiences to even put enough material together for 1 hour show. The words of Vince Sorrenti were ringing in my ears that most of the shows in comedy festivals are a farce, as you pay a lot of money that you wouldn't normally do for shows that shouldn't even be there, and this felt like one. Not enough jokes and very mild. 1.5
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