Woof-o-meter :-
0-Die Bastard : 1-Crap : 2-Rubbish(watchable) : 3-OK : 3.5-Nice : 4-Good : 4.5-Very Good : 5-WOW
31.12.10 : NY EVE show : Laugh Garage Syd
It was a weird one that didn't really go to plan, but the audience was super tolerant so it was ok. 3
29.12.10 : The Tourist - movie
Action, Adventure, Crime : A woman picks a tourist to draw the authorities away from her boyfriend, who has had plastic surgery after embezzling 2 billion dollars. It travels rather slowly, but fortunately it has a twist in the middle, unfortunately I picked it so it was predictable and mild for me. Most people in the audience gasped when the twist was revealed, so for most people is probably a 3.5, but for me 2.5
26.12.10 : The Led Zeppelin Show : St George Leagues - music
It's been 25 years since I quit the Zep, it was getting repetitive after 10 years of solid listening, so it was quite a treat to hear the songs again. The show was pretty good with the vocalist being quite close to the real thing, the guitarist was ripping licks just as smooth as Page, the running bass lines were awesome, and the driving drumming was also pretty good, even though it didn't have the power of a Bonham. An interesting fact is that Zep's always had a powerful rhythm section, that is quite evident in the remastered stuff, but it wasn't that pronounced in the old recordings and usually over looked in the past. There was only a small crowd, probably because Zep is the greatest band no one has ever heard of and not really that known by the main stream public, but there was an enthusiastic group of guys, born 20 years after Zep, that were hamming it up and milking the show for all it's worth. Zep was always know for their long shows, with most of the band leaving the stage and having breaks during the long solos. So tonight it was quite humorous when the band also recreated that during Dazed & Confused, only the third song in, and with them not really needing a break. They did all the best songs, and even the delicate Rain Song(which sounds great on guitar if you can play it), to some rare ones, like from Physical Graffiti. It was kind of a shame they started so late, because it's always going to be hard to keep and audience after 11:00 o'clock(which was when the second set started), but it was still a lot of fun. 4-4.5
24.12.10 : Xmas Eve Show : Laugh Garage Syd
It was always going to be a quite one on this day, but at least the people that did turn up tonight weren't regulars, and so laughed a lot, and that's what made it funny for me. The best were Darren Sanders, Paul Warnes, and Jacques Barrett, who really cut the audience up, and even the young comics were nice, just not as intense as the other 3. The bits I didn't like were, some of the masturbation stuff was too detailed and ended up more like therapy than jokes. These days it has to be kept light because the subject is getting quite passé. And the talking to the audience stuff when different comics asked the same members of the audience the same questions, making if feel a bit repetitive. I'm always going to be a bit picky because of what I do, but at least I think it didn't fluster the audience that much. Still nice 3.5-4
22.12.10 : 4000 profile views
21.12.10 : The Amanda & Susie Show - Cale and Bree's Wedding Edition! : Roxbury Hotel
I was hoping to have the rest of the year off, as I'm sick of doing this, but then this came along, which is a bit odd because it hard to get an audience for a show at this time of the year with all the Xmas parties going on, but I figured it was good last time, so it should be good this time. For me I don't think it was as good as last time, but, because it's a variety show, it was still quite entertaining. I might not be raving about it, but that not really important, because a good sized crowd did turn up, and I did overheard someone say it was great. Benny Davis started us off with his new Buck You song, before that girls took over. There was 2 impro scenes with the Elk-man on a mountain, and Barry the 72 having a Bar Mitzvah. Dan Ilic did some stand-up, and was nice, and then played Lord Gaga, Lady Gaga husband, in a little Q&A. There was a bit of French Revolution impro before we had Steen Raskopoulos & Carlo Ritchie reprise their very funny Champagne skit that had them fumbling for the exit because they were blind from all the champagne in their eyes. After the break Amanda sung her beautiful song about self gratification called Making Love Alone. There was a murder in the forest impro scene, and some angry Germans arguing. Next was the comic Daniel Moore, who was better than when I saw him last week at the Mic in Hand, so I quite liked him. Daniel's bit was quite different when Benny Davis supplied background music, because you don't hear it at stand up shows, but it was quite nice and had that old style comedian/Las Vegas nightclub feel. Celia Pacquola was last up, and I found her show at the start of the year a bit too busy for me, but tonight I liked it. After the champagne skit I liked the little banter stories when the girls went overseas to Cork and Vegas. I'm a bit burnt out so my enjoyment was only 3.5, the crowd was probably higher.
20.12.10 : Monday Night Comedy : Fringe Bar
It was a relaxed delivery tonight so it lost all it's intensity, and ended up only chuckly for me. Matt O'Kine was the same as last week and did the talking to the audience bit, but because everyone in the room is so used to it they know not say much in case they're made fun off, and because Matt didn't really have that much to work with(even though a good improviser can work around this) he wasn't really that funny in this bit. Delores was something different, because I haven't seen her for a while, and she does that inappropriate women's business type jokes. Tahir wasn't what I was expecting. In his main wog style shows he is very hyperactive and has a quick delivery, but tonight it wasn't there, and when he tried the improvised audience thing, that Matt had done already, it wasn't any better than his attempt. The crowd liked him but it was a bit too subdued for me. Between 3-3.5
19.12.10 : Jackie Bristow : Bald Rock Hotel - music
Good voice, but she has that slow emotional song style that's not that interesting for me. 3
17.12.10 : Love and Other Drugs - movie
Comedy, Drama, Romance : A flaky womanising salesman gets a job selling pharmaceutical drugs, when he meets a sick girl that he falls for. A totally emotionless movie that you feel nothing for, not happy, or sad, just nothing, and the worst part is it's a long boring drag. Not even the nudity made it interesting. 1.5
16.12.10 : A Mic in Hand Xmas Xtravaganza, hosted by Tommy Dean : Friend in Hand Hotel
You would think with such a big line up with professional comics it would be great, but it wasn't. There just wasn't that much to laugh at, and it wasn't just me, because the crowd mainly just chuckled. The only difference was that the crowd didn't mind that it was mild, but for me it just gets boring. In all fairness Jacques Barrett was good and the only one I really laughed at, and the crowd thought so too because they loved him. Marcus Ryan had half a good set with his callbacks to previous comedian's jokes, so was nice for me, the crowd gave him good applause though. Wayne Dixon, Ben Ellwood, Sam Bowring, Gary Eck were all ok, but I didn't find Tommy funny at all with his audience ad-lib stuff, I remember he used to be good at it but now it's just not funny. For me it was tedious not laughing, so I left before the last bracket. One 4, one at 3.5, two at 3, two at 2 and one at 0.5. The crowd would probably differ, but overall for me 2.5
15.12.10 : Full Body No Love Junior Tennis Academy : Hermann's Bar - impro
For me it wasn't the most controlled, or skilled, or even technically accurate improv, but that didn't matter because it was still fun, and coupled with the crazy and enthusiastic audience it just makes it more so. There may have been some unfamiliarity and disjointedness because the teams were only decided just before they went on stage, by being randomly drawn out of a hat, so some of the pairs chemistry may have been lost. You see it when some impro players just click with others and it's magic. But this separation is good training to make you able to turn it on with anyone. Sorry to anyone if I missed your name or forgot you, I can't hear that well and I'm not good with faces.
Vic Peters, Genevieve Fricker Hari Bhrugubanda, Matt Watson, Sam Jenkins, Nick Fischer
The prompt was, What present you would get for you Dad on Xmas, we got socks, a watch, and fertilizer, they went with watch. A father is checking that his son is on time, because mustn't be late for Xmas, but the son hates being late so is well prepared and has even sent his father a memo with a watch attached, to make sure. The father says it's very important that they are not late for Xmas because of what happened last year. We quickly cut to last year where there is a solitary guy sitting down, and when he started tying a tourniquet around his arm I instantly realised what he was doing and said, No, he can't possibly be doing what I think he's doing, and not for Xmas, but alas he was, he was miming shooting up with heroin, and this got the usual groaning laugh response from the crowd when they also realised how sick it was. We cut back to the father who tells his son he doesn't want a repeat of that again this year. The son assures him it won't happen again, but the father is insistent and recalls the year before that, where we again switch to find a new person with a different face shooting up again. The father takes his son to the hospital to show him what heroin addicts become, and meets a candy cane inhaling woman. The father calls all the random weirdos hiding in the house for dinner, the Egg nog man, little Timmy lizard, chair man, and the cardboard eating woman, and they all have the best-est heroin Xmas ever. On the night it felt quite chaotic, but on paper it all makes sense, but even with the chaos I laughed and gasped, and still thought it was quite nice, and even hedging toward good.
Jim Fishwick, Sertan Saral, Ciaran Magee, James Colley, Michael Richardson
Sitting on the bean bag was the prompt. Santa and his army of elf(yes one) was expecting the Grinch, which foiled his surprise attack. An argument ensues where Santa corrects the Grinch's grammar, but this infuriates the Grinch and he warns the pedantic f**ker that he will be back again next year but bigger, and stronger, and harder, and faster, and better, and stronger, but Santa again gets the better of him and sends his words to Kanye for a new mix. At the fortress builders place his phone is repaired and he get a call from someone looking for Mr c**t. Monsignor c**t appears and takes that call and is informed that c**t industries is going down. This starts all the sexual innuendo jokes like, Cum inside, and, I can see Mr c**t inside of you. The Grinch tells his son to join him in his fight against Santa, but the son refuses and tries to go to live with his mother, but unfortunately she was stolen by Santa and is now Mrs Claus, of which she is astounded, but has to take the offer. The son calls the Police to help find his stolen mum but Santa appears with her, to tell him the truth. Santa then calls his exhausted reindeer one by one for a delivery, but Rudolf's red nose is a problem because it's not very stealthily in evading the Grinch, so Santa yanks it out and leaves a hole in his face. Rudolf and the Elf then form a buddy cop pairing to kill the Grinch, so he can't take his wife back. The Grinch then goes to Bill Gates for some money for his half orphaned son, and some unicorns and nuclear weapons, so he can kill Santa, because Santa is an anagram of Satan. Santa hides in Norway but is betrayed and the Grinch confronts him with a $100,000 dollar Bill Gates sponsored knife, but the Grinch is soon surrounded by Santa's army and cornered. This one was about the same as the first, chaotic but fun.
Neal Downward, Alistair Magee, Matt McLaren, Charlie Mitchell, Phil Roser - plastic apple
God is discussing with Satan that he will create a world, but will leave an opening in it so that people can also worship Satan if they eat an apple. Back on earth Adam summons God to complain that he has no cloths and is naked, but God replies with the question "How is it that you know you are naked", and that's went Adam spills the beans that he was coerced by a snake into eating an apple. God is pissed, because he gave Adam everything, even a sexy rib, but Adam rebukes this blame game and asks, why make apples delicious if you don't want them eaten. God replies is that it's not true, because no one likes Granny Smith's, and to proves it, when old Granny Smith appears in that garden of Edan, when there is only supposed to be Adam and Eve, he tells her to f**k off. God next creates a tailor so Adam can order some cloths, but Adam wants something revealing that doesn't make him look like a tart. He receives a sash that only covers one breast and is pissed. Back a God central, God is in a dilemma with Adam and decides to flood the place, but not before the annoying Granny Smith appears, and is driven over a cliff when she is possessed by Satan. God becomes a bit lazy and doesn't want to re-create all the animals again and figures he can get someone to build a really big(cubits big) boat to save them, unfortunately Noah doesn't know how big a cubit is. God then summons his son Jesus and gives him a hammer and some nails so he can die on his birthday, and Satan also gives him a birthday present of killer hummingbirds that attack him. This one was more logical for me, so was more coherent, and was just as entertaining as the others.
Michael Hing, Carlo Ritchie, Alex Lee, Edan B Lacey, Ben Jenkins, Steen Raskopoulos, Sam Yeldham. Sorry to those who's names I couldn't hear.
With sheep as the prompt, we got a quick story about Norwegian pig copulators, but because it was a bit risqué they needed a new idea, and started describing things in a new scene until something stuck. They eventually got to Leonardo DiCaprio playing dominoes with Tilda Swinton, on the 5th of March, in a room full of paintings. Leo has a debilitating anxiety problem and can't remember which movie he is in, when we hear a voice pleading to be taken down. In an ironic twist, Tilda quickly realises it's Jackson Pollock that's hanging on the wall. A Lazar fisted Harvey Weinstein makes a speech about trying to raise funds for a roof. Paul Giovanni also pops in and complains about the roof, and then goes to NZ where he meets a local that is turning black sheep white, making them Bleached As.
We are next told a story where Steen and his dad are watching TV, when a story about anal bleaching comes on, which prompts his dad to say, "What happened to turning off the lights". The next scene is a Dad talking to his 4 year old sons, while the mother supplies them beer. Dad is proud of his athletic son, but less so with his dancing son, who they think is retarded. The son is actually a cosmetic dancer and wants his dad to join him in his world. The dad happily agrees to dance with him, but the son needs more, and wants him to bleach himself below the belt. CUT. Before the scene went too far someone quickly did the walking across the stage "scene cut", to switch to something more appropriate, and this set the tone of the night with nearly every scene having to be cut when it went too far, and this just made it funnier. Next we had a boyfriend talking to his girlfriend, and complaining that their sex is boring because, "OF HER DARK COLOURED ASSHOLE". CUT. You could guess the audiences reaction to that, there was shocked WTF laughter that went on for ages as it rattled around in our heads, and it even stunned his girlfriend, by the look on Alex's face. We switch to some old pompous men in a Gentleman's Club that are recalling the days of when the soiled themselves from both ends.
Michael then told the story about when his 88 year old Grandmother went to see his show Hing & Magee - Illustrious Physicians of Romance, that unfortunately had a story about having anal sex. So 8 months later when Michael was setting up her internet, she asked if there are any clips of him on the internet not doing anal sex. To which the cast recreated the scene with heckler.
Ben next told a story about when he finally got his remote controlled Viper car that sprays water on peoples ankles, after a year of begging, and promptly drove it into a pool and ruined it. A pompous child sprays a guys ankle DAMN GOOD, and the father wants to bazooka his face, but instead shoots his kite down, a commodity that they use as children in Afghanistan. CUT, too racist. Steven's internet porn addiction is taken to extremes when every word he hears is rude, like conduct sounds like c**t, and analyst sounds like anal.
Next was a story about how the persons father threw all their presents out off the window on Xmas, because they were ingrates and didn't like them. Unfortunately the presents were paints and splattered all over his mothers car, the person that had picked the gifts in the first place. A Lebanese guy drives up in a doof doof car and insults another guys pussy car, that's all fully blue, and like gay colours and sh*t, but stalls it when reversing. Next some orphans, the product of a malfunctioning Johnny Rubber, are on the street eating their Xmas pigeon, and lesser parts of their hands, when a milliner promises them Xmas dinner, but then turns and says "f**k you all", because he's mad. Next a couple of rich stuck up LA girls are talking about their 4 Ferrari's made of giraffes, when one complains that she only gets serial killers at her Xmas party, because she is a Millat.
Ben next told a story of how he went to Blackwattle Bay for a dip, but found a man dipping into his pants and depositing erroneous expulsions on the beach. We are quickly transported to a man scream-wanking, at the top of his lungs. He is soon joined by more screaming wankers that form an acapella screaming chorus, driven by the power of the beating rod. CUT, disgusting but very funny that had people groan laughing. This time the lighting person had enough and cut the lights, because it went too far and it was close to the 40 minutes, but the cast had other ideas and pushed this this motherf**ker further by adding an extra 10 minutes, to huge approval from the crowd. Keeping with the theme, a man invents running, instead of wanking in sprint races, which breaks all protocols, and he starts winning races, unfortunately this visual treat was recreated for us in a flash back scene. He battles against convention and argues he should be running, because he does enough wanking at home, which unfortunately they also recreate it in all it's glory. Ben tries to get away from all this self abuse and cuts the scene to the top of a mountain where and man asks a guru if he will find love on Xmas. Back to the orphans, they are using pigeon blood as milk in their coffee, and decorating the place blood red for Xmas. On the street they are making small change by milking the gentry, when two such men appear, and in an opium filled decision they decide to invite the urchins home for Xmas dinner. At the dinner party the men break a bonbon, and Ben asks Steen to read the imaginary joke. Steen starts grappling for ideas, when Michael runs on and whispers a joke in his ear, and as you would expect, it was, Q:Why did Santa pull his dick out, A:To tell everybody where the north pole was. The men reunite the orphans with their parents, and even give them back their missing feet, and they all lived happily ever after. Even though it was dick jokes all the way, it still had laughs all the way. Overall 4
It's been another good year for the Project 52 crew. Looking at last year the content was probably a touch better, because peoples first ideas are usually the best, and with a crowd of around 30 at the start, to this years numbers of double or triple that. And what a audience, they have become a part of the cast with their infectious enthusiasm that makes thing better, so thank you to them. There have been a lot of hits this year and only a few misses, which must be expected because it's hard coming up with new material every week and expecting it to work every time, but that's were the audience comes to the rescue. So everyone should be thanked in what is quite a bit of work, and a lot of fun, in what can be described as a real social network, rather than just a comedy night.
14.12.10 : Tony Woods (USA) and His Naughty Little Helpers Xmas Special : Comedy Store
I won't bore you with too many details because these people are repeats and you would've read about them here before. Also I think most of comics are repeats for this crowd, so the laughing wasn't as strong from them either. Matt Okine was the host and got good applause. Ray Badran didn't get as many laughs, but he tried some new stuff, with some that worked, and some that didn't, I still laughed the most at him. Amelia-Jane Hunter isn't a regular, and got heaps of groans with her 4 finger prolapsed vagina stuff, which took the audience by surprise because she is so disgusting, but even though it's off putting she still got very good applause. Daniel Townes was as good as usual. I don't know what it is about this place but I was pretty tired by the break, even with the coffee, and that continued to Tony Woods. Tony blew me away the first time I saw him with his mainly Australian material, but each time I have seen him after that the appeal as diminished. He was nice, but it was only the Australian references that made me laugh. The audience on the other hand loved him and gave him the most applause. 3.5-4
13.12.10 : 14 Blades (Jin yi wei) - movie
Action, History, Thriller : This one was hard to follow because you didn't have enough time the read the subtitles, the story was complicated, and the scenes had that dark style that makes it hard to see exactly what's going on. What I worked out was, The Emperor has a Secret Police called the Jingyiwei(orphans brutally trained to do any job the Emperor wants no matter how dirty). Qingling leads the Jingyiwei and is given a box with 14 blades: 8 for interrogations, six for executions, of which the 14th is used for failure of a mission. The Emperor's Uncle plots against the Emperor by accusing this loyal counsellor as a traitor, and sends Qingling to arrest him. Qingling discovers the plot and doesn't complete his mission, and then goes on the run to stop the Uncle's bigger agenda. For failure of his mission Qingling is hunted down by the Jingyiwei and a mysterious woman Tau Tau that can move so fast that she can't be killed. When I got home the show 25 Frames were reviewing this move, and 2 out of the 3 young reviewers hated it, me on the other hand thought it was nice, but the fight scenes weren't as spectacular as I was hoping for, even though they were still good. 3.5.
11.12.10 : Mick Meredith : Laugh Garage Syd
Mick Neven started slow with the audience thing, which was more like a meet and greet rather than anything off the cuff, with the actual audience getting more laughs, but when he got to his set material he turned out quite good. There was some Oprah bashing, and a good section about getting jobs and making money by applying for medical experiments. The best thing was that I haven't seen him before, so the jokes were fresh. Paul Warnes was trying some new stuff, which was good because I pretty much know his set by now, but I couldn't really tell if the audience were regulars and have seen him before, because they laughed bit too much to have known his material. Sally Kimpton was delightful, and Mick Meredith finished the night with a strong set. 4
10.12.10 : 4th Top Blog outright, even though there was no new blog added. Congratulation to the students who must have put it there by constantly hitting this page waiting for their review.
10.12.10 : Crazy Fish : Excelsior Glebe - music
My show got cancelled so this is all I could find that was nearby. From the short amount of time I was there, Crazy Fish sounded like a covers band, but did songs with a jazz feel, which isn't really my cup of tea. 1
09.12.10 : Coogee Comedy - David Smiedt, Tom Oakley : Randwick Rugby Club
The audience didn't turn up so it wasn't worth it, so I left.
08.12.10 : Project 52 Presents Christmas In July (In December) : Hermann's Bar
I can't say it was their funniest show, because I only chuckled in places, and I can't even say that the audience was as loud as usual, but I can say that it was something different and a bit unusual, so I quite liked it. And even though it went for 1½ hours, ½ an hour longer than they are obliged to do, I was quite disappointed when it felt like it ended all too soon, something I think the audience felt too.
Julian Davidson(aka Ben Jenkins) one time producer of the Golden Girls, did a somewhat fictitious opening tribute to Rufus Lucksmith, and his famous TV series Space Wizard, by telling us about it and him. Rufus latter fell to the depths of despair when a cad stole his wife and he committed suicide, and as a tribute to the great man Julian is still married to her to this day. As a further tribute, Julian then introduced the replay of the 1984 Christmas variety show. I thought Ben's introduction piece was quite good. The show started with the new Space Wizard theme song, with lyrics like, "The star from the star, the wizardry wiz, Please don't leave him alone with your kids", and, "He's got fiery balls and an icy penis". The show next turned to a David Letterman style talk show with the Space Wizard(Michael Hing) as host, complete with musical impresario, ex flock of seagulls front-man Damien Higginbottom on the drums, to provide levity and a rim-shot to accentuate the punchlines in corny jokes. And just to prove how effective the rim-shot was, when Damien mentioned that Christmas was the anniversary of his wifes death, Space Wizard made him rim-shot it, which made it funny. Yet when Space Wizard read out one bad Bon-Bon joke, like, Q-What disease do you get at Christmas, A-tinsillitis, not even the rim-shot could save it, but because no one laughed at the rim-shot everybody stilled laughed because the reliable rim-shot failed.
James Colley did a nice story about the history of Christmas by mixing Santa Claus with historical facts, from the Greek Empire with Homer, which was irrelevant because Jesus was born during the Roman Empire, and all the way to Iraq. We were told that the name Christmas was derived from John Christmas, the builder of the barn Jesus was born in, and the Romans coined BC as meaning Before Christmas, to denote the period. And that Santa Claus derived his immortality by drinking the blood of gophers, and that he also uses body doubles, like Saddam Hussein, to cover the earth.
Vic Peters told us the true story of Santa Claus handed down to him from a wise Norwegian. Santa Claus is actually pronounced Sinter Klass, and he was really a Spanish Bullfighter, that didn't fly around, but travelled by boat. And on Christmas night gave you candy if you were good, but kidnapped you and sold you as a slave if you were bad, basically a Christmassy slave trader. It was a nice story.
Tom Walker's Hour of Power radio show, with him voicing all the characters, had Tom talking to Beyoncé Knowles and God, in the form of the Burning Bush. His piece was ok.
Matt Watson did a very clever story about Christmas, by combining different movies with the nativity. He told of the Cowardly Lion, Tin Man, and Scarecrow delivering gifts to the baby Jesus when Voldermortal burst in, and with a wave of his wand killed the 3 and Jesus parents. Voldemortal then turned his attention to the baby, but his spell bounced off the infant and brunt his face off, bring to prominence Jesus Potter. Jesus then got his favourite reindeer Hagrad, and headed to Hogwarts School of Witch Path to Missionary, to learn his craft. He gathered his disciples and battled Voldemortal and his henchmen Judas Malfoy, and even the Grinch, until one day when he decided to sacrifice himself for the greater good of mankind. He started pleading to Godric Gryffingod, when Voldemortal entered and struck him down with a wave of his wand, and sent him to his old Jedi master Albus Dumbledore. Albus then used the power of the force and returned him to Hogwarts where Jesus pulled out his Elder Wand saber and shouted "Expelliarmus" rendering Voldemortal armless. It was a good story with plenty of mixed references.
Next we had a nice little sketch from Carlo Ritchie and Gen Fricker(I believe) doing Christmas detectives. Where the rouge detective is explaining the damage he caused, in his last bust, to his chief, but using a dialogue full of Christmas clichés.
Space Wizard returned in the second half bleeding profusely from being shivved, in the form of an errant nail, but the Wizard continued on with the loss of his notes that were obscured by his blood stains.
The Church Group players next did the naivety scene, but when the farmer that owned the barn wanted to feed his goats he argued with Mary, and tried to chuck baby Jesus out of the manger, so he could use it for it's intended purpose, to feed his livestock. Quite funny.
Ryan Withers did a bit of interactive storytelling, by asking us to pick a story from the list of stories that he had, which he would then read out. He read the list, but stopped every now and then for our choice, but then just continued with more ridiculous Christmas story names, like, Kafka Planket the Christmas Blanket, Christan - the Wonderful Christmas Crustacean, Walking with some Winter Wonderham, Instant Christmas - just add ham, Black Santa - a story of tradition gone awry, There's an Elf in my Soup, The day I met Santa - and his friend Jack, The Chronicles of Christmas - Voyage of the Dawn Trader, just to mention a few. After our choices were ignored, and the massive list of titles read, he finally got to the story he was was going to read anyway. It was about Harry and how he wanted to meet Santa, but because he fell a sleep on Christmas night, he had to travel back in his time in his time machine to the night before, where he unfortunately met himself, which finished the story on a disgusting, but legal, paradoxical conundrum. Quite good.
Parsley Dupont(aka Ben in a floral frock) told of her life in the movies, with her trying to axe murder an actor, and trying to glass a stage hand. She was then shot by Ian McKeller who promptly threw her off stage, because she wasn't in this picture. It was nice
The Church Group players returned with Santa Clause talking to a stranger, who didn't believe he was Santa because he acted more like a grizzled old prospector. He tried to proved he was genuine by listing the things in his sack, this is where Carlo ad-libbed all manner of preposterous items, like lamb shanks, human shanks. old man lips, band-aid cats, gypsy tears, nasal hair, genital warts, etc, but coming up with the final proof, his incontinence. Nice also.
Overall between 3.5-4
07.12.10 : Rudolph the FULL BODY Nose ReinNIS : Roxbury Hotel - impro
It started fine in the first half with 2 good scenes, but then kind of petered out. The second half was the retelling of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer, but only using the original story as a baseline to a totally new story. Last week they retold the movie It's A Wonderful Life, but delivered as director scene where one person would direct the scene and interrupt the story to change it's direction, just like a director would. I have seen quite a few of these director scenes, and I can say I haven't seen one that was any good, but tonight they changed it to a narrator that asked for worlds from the audience during his dialogue, which worked a lot better. Again it started well, lulled in the middle and picked up somewhat at the end. Overall impro hasn't really done it for me this year, but all I have as reference is the first 8 years of 4-6 point impro, and it's getting to the point of thinking about quitting. The crowd sounded like they liked it better than me. 3-3.5
07.12.10 : Chronicles of Narnia - Voyage of the Dawn Treader - movie
Adventure, Family, Fantasy : Some of the children return to Narnia to solve the problems caused by the Dark Island, by going on a quest. On paper it looked like it should have had enough content to be entertaining, and even the movie seemed to be good enough, but the reality was that is was fairly ho hum, and even a bit tedious. I don't know what missing, but it didn't do it for me, maybe it will suit early teens, like 10 year olds. 2.5
07.12.10 : Due Date - movie
Adventure, Comedy : A guy has to cross America to get to the birth of his first baby, but an idiot ruins everything. Exactly like the trailer portrays, ie not funny, actually there was one disgusting laugh in the middle. Predictable, contrived, staged and manufactured, but the deal breaker is that it's not funny. 1
06.12.10 : Monday Night Comedy : Fringe Bar
It's not often that you get a big name like Fiona O'louhglin playing a pub gig, so I really had to go see it, but the real surprise was the extra comedians that turned up unannounced. A group of them are going overseas to entertain the troops, so they did slots tonight as a dry run. Chris North was the MC, but he wasn't much chop. He did the getting to know the audience thing, but it was like he didn't know how to do it, because he just got peoples names, which he promptly forgot, and didn't do any funny on the spot ad-lib. First up was Lehmo, and he was fine, but the first surprise of the night was Charlie Pickering. He only did a short set, but he was fine also. The second surprise was Tom Gleeson, whose new show I missed so was hoping to see parts of it tonight. Unfortunately he only did a small bit of new stuff, and mainly relied on his very funny stuff from previous shows. Like his "In the Old Days" routine, with him stating that "In the Old Days" you would have to wait 3 weeks to get photos developed, and why was the Pharmacist in charge of photo development. He did a good sized set that was quite good. Lastly was Fiona, who did a long set that was also good, that finished on her newish Oprah routine, which emphasizes how Oprah doesn't really say much these days, but just repeats what the guest says to fill time. The Oprah routine had me light headed. 4
05.12.10 : Club Central Comedy : Club Central Hurstville
It always feels like a dud night when not many people turn up, but this crowd is different. They may be a small crowd, but they do laugh if they are treated like nothing is wrong and the comics do their normal routine. The biggest problem with a crowd of regulars is that they remember repeats, so when Tom Oakley turned up again, he didn't get many laughs. Brady Gunn couldn't get anything going but was mercifully short. Amelia Jane Hunter treated the small crowd like a big crowd, and did her normal full routine of very rude and crude jokes, which the crowd loved and laughed throughout. Chris Franklin also treated it like nothing was odd, and did a very long set that got good laughs all the way. He trailed a new song at the end, but it only had 3 lines in it that were funny. I think he is trying to find another hit, like his song Bloke, but that type of thing is a once in a life time happening so it's going very hard to duplicate. 3.5-4
04.12.10 : Wit Large #4 - Australian History : Gleebooks
I was looking at the list of comics and was thinking that it wasn't that strong a line up, but because I'm trying to see 15 more shows before the end of the year I had to go, and in the end it turned out quite good. These shows are touted as the thinking persons comedy, something I'm not qualified for, with today's theme being Australian history, not that the comics really follow that. Our regular host Dave Bloustien ripped some new Australian based jokes, intellectual ones, not crude ones, that were good. On the list of comics was Mujahid Ahmed, and I was thinking, whose this unknown, and not even the description of "Australia’s only Sudanese comedian" nor his appearance rang any bells, that is, until he told his first joke, and that's when I remembered that I had seen him once before at the Laugh Garage. Muj was just as good as last time, but it feels like he puts on this act of a stereotype with basic jokes to appeal to the maximum people, because he would talk slowly at the jokes but very quickly at the set ups between jokes, it looks like he is a lot smarter that we are lead to believe. The audience also liked Muj, because they gave him the second biggest applause of the show. I have seen Jack Druce a couple of times, even as recently as the last Oct at Hermann's Heroes, and he can be a bit hit and miss, but today he was a hit and did a good job. I just saw Deanne Smith 5 days ago and she was good, but today she did a new routine, which was probably better for me as it saves the repeats, that was more engaging than her blistering best off on Monday. She was still good, but in a different way, and finished off with her love song, as on Monday, that really got the crowd laughing. I was not looking forward to Mathew Kenneally because I had just seen him on Thursday, and he wasn't very good, but today was a different story because he was good. He does political based jokes, but not the rhetoric type that can be preachy like Jamie Kilstein, but more fun based jokes, and it's only when he told his last joke that I remembered that I had seen him before, and that time he was also good. 4
03.12.10 : The Rocks - Markets by Moonlight : The Rocks - music
Ruby for Lucy unfortunately didn't turn up due to illness, so they were replaced by acapella Xmas carolers, but at least I got to see Girl Most Likely, which were quite alright, even though I had to stand a block away because my tinnitus was so painful, due to the sound being so loud. 3.5
02.12.10 : Sam Simmons, Eric Hutton and more @ A Mic in Hand : Friend In Hand Hotel
I went to this room a few times when it started(about 6 years ago), but it was always crowded so you ended up at the back, and even sometimes in the back room. The biggest problem was the PA because it was so muffled you couldn't actually hear the words, so I said to myself, this show is it's a waste of time and I'm going to avoided it. The sound was the biggest problem, but even the format, with so many new comics it really wasn't that funny, because their material was rarely strong.
I was looking at the gig guide on YouHadToBeThere.com.au, and thought that it might get me out of this rut, so I went. Fortunately I got the front room and could hear quite well, maybe they fixed the PA. Unfortunately I mistook Sam Simmons, who I'm not fond of, with Sam Bowering, who I find is quite alright, making the headliner nothing special for me. At least Sam did some Christmas carols to the tune of Star War themes, so that was amusing. Eric Hutton was the MC and did the slow delivery thing, probably to stretch his material, so the pace was fairly slow all night. The new comics were hit and miss, usually miss, except of a Canadian chap who was funny. Same as usual 3-3.5
01.12.10 : Story Club and Get Out Of The Kitchen : Hermann's Bar
It might not have been the funniest Story Club of the year, but it was still just as engaging, if not more so. The theme of the night was, "Get Out Of The Kitchen", as a precursor to when things might have got too hot to handle. But even though that was the intended theme, some storytellers took it literally and actually told stories about food, which wasn't really a problem, because either way they were all still good.
Ben Jenkins told a story from the secret vaults of his sister(CJ), but converted it to that Ben style of writing for this reading. CJ and her husband had moved to Beirut for his work, where they adopted a bright blue Vespa and a Syrian tortoise named Paul. Her being somewhat bored, her husband suggested she visit an old haunt of his called the Sporting Club, but upon entering was quickly put up against the wall with numerous AK-47's trained on her. An Arabic Mr Sheffield came to her rescue and extricated her from her predicament, citing that this was not the Sporting Club, but something quite different. This story felt different to Ben's usual style, in that it felt more factual, but was still good.
Patrick Magee produced the third episode of Francis Llewellyngton-Magee. We last left Sargent Syphilis Magee plummeting to earth after a Pterodactyl punctured his balloon. He was heading to certain death, when the cad himself swindled the Reaper as easily as he would rig a game of cards. The story continued, into what Ben described as a kind of Jurassic Park type story, with Dr Horemond and his dinosaurs(the movie had Dr Hammond and his dinosaurs), but in actual fact it was more like the Island of Dr Moreau, with Dr Horemond manufacturing his Triceratops companion Rex. The Dr surmised that the Sargent would make a tasty meal and ordered his trusty manservant/reptile to kill him, but unfortunately Rex proved less that trustworthy. This story was more conventional compared to the other episodes, and was in a bit more logical in structure. Listening the Pat's stories live is always a treat, because he puts his acting skills to good use and makes the characters come alive. Another good one.
Andrew Garrick's story was a train wreck in motion, what else could you call applying for a job as head chief, getting said job, and then not being able to even poach an egg. I could see this out of control train hurtling down the track, you can see it in my summery, the crowd could see it, only poor Andrew couldn't see it. I was thinking, this couldn't possibly be happening and there must be some trick that will divert this train wreck, but no, the mess continued at break neck speed to it's catastrophic conclusion. A very good story and quite funny, even though it was embarrassingly so.
Nick Fisher's first foray into Story Club was about his poor mother. Even with her nuclear physics type mind, of being a doctorate, she just could grasp the concept that her manipulation of the Indian cuisine wasn't really up to scratch, and even with the not to subtle type hints from everyone around, who were more trying to save her from embarrassment rather than for their own gain, she just couldn't see the logic of it all. The story was very engaging and quite good.
Alex Lee took Story Club to another level in her very clever tale about notorious Chinese bush-ranger Sam Pooh, by somehow making the whole story rhyme, be it in A-B-A fashion. But not that crappy type rhyme, like in some songs where they jumble the word order around to get the last word to rhyme, but in logical order like a real book.
Sam came to Australia looking for gold
And panned the rivers deep
But instead sought a girl to add to his fold
He needed cash for her keep
He tried to joined the Kelly gang
But they weren't looking for an Asian poof
So he got a gun that goes bang
And soon went on hoof
He started robbing the stagecoach
For money or their wives
And soon the troopers were on the approach
But in the final battle, he lost his lives.
Afterward she gave us the additional information that Sam raped a guy, but oddly didn't include this funny fact in her story. Maybe she had trouble rhyming with it, even though sex pest comes to mind. Very funny and clever like her Miner bird story.
David Cunningham's story was like an exposé of polite racists, when he told of how he and his 2 friends entered the Model United Nations Assembly contest. They initially represented South Africa, resplendent in safari suits and pith helmets, at the regional Wollongong contest. Upon winning they went on to represented China at the nationals in Canberra, in what could be construed as insensitive Mao suits, with photos to prove it. He ended on some sort of Geisha fan dance opera, that was reminiscent of a Hey Hey it's Saturday scandal. I couldn't hear all the jokes, because he uses a different microphone technique, but it sounded like that usual Cunningham construction that always appeals. Also good.
Zoe Norton Lodge gave us the full details to a story that she alluded too in a short bit from one of her previous stories. It was about her uncle Billy, and his penchant for food, that would see him stopping at 2 different relatives houses for lunch every Sunday, FOR 7 YEARS, before finally returning home for another lunch. He used an alibi of playing soccer to explain the lateness of his arrival to his wife, yet this, and the notion that despite all his physical activity he had actually quadrupled in size, still didn't have the alarm bells ringing in her head. It was all getting too much for him and he was about to confess his food adultery, when the story skewed and he escaped prosecution when the secret was somehow lost in the confusion. Also a good one.Story Club keeps it's high standard, good show 4
01.12.10 : Jackass - 3D - movie
Documentary, Action, Comedy : Yeah, it was still funny, but after seeing the other movies and TV shows you do get a bit desensitised to the stunts. The first one was the best, because it was new. The second had more gut churning stunts, and by halfway through you could see that the cast was feed up with it and just wanted it to be over. This one wasn't as off putting, but you could tell the cast was having more fun than that audience, but overall I laughed in places. 3.5-4
30.11.10 : It's a Wonderful - Full Body Contact No Love Tennis : Roxbury Hotel - impro
There was a few last minute cast changes, but you couldn't over look that the show just wasn't that funny, and for me that's all I'm after. Nothing was really clicking tonight, and the highest scene score I gave was a 3.5. The first half was the usual three teams, but only doing 2 scenes each, as opposed to 3. The scene that got the most laughs was when Tom Walker started doing the surreal sh*t in his Chair-hand Norwegian dance scene, where he invented the Murder Cave and the Wank Pit. Lliam Amor(special guest from Melbourne) did some good characters that got some laughs, but when Miss Amanda Buckley tried to start one of her funny dialogues, that always gets laughs, she was interrupted and talked over before it went anywhere, and after that she just took the support role. Another thing I didn't like was went a young player started talking before the laughs died down, I suppose it's a timing thing you learn after a while. It felt like one of those nights where everyone was too polite, where each player wanted to take a support role to allow the other player to shine, or maybe no one had any ideas, but either way there wasn't much direction in the scenes and they more or less just got through it for the sake of it. I think we could have used that Dave Bloustien jump into everybody else's scene when no one was laughing technique that helps when things go bad. The second half was a long form director scene using the movie It's a Wonderful life as a baseline, but totally changing the story impro style. I have seen quite a lot of this directed impro where the director changes things during the scene, and I can say that I haven't see it ever work where it made if funnier for the audience, or funny at all, and this was no exception. And the other problem was that it was long form, if things go bad in short form it ends quickly and you soon forget it when the next scene is good, but when things go bad in long form it will grind on for ages, so much so that this night a couple left halfway through. This show probably hurt repeat sales, but then again it might just be me. A generous 3
29.11.10 : Monday Night Comedy : Fringe Bar
Even though I have seen Lindsay Webb before, he is always good, but the main reason I went was that you don't get to see Deanne Smith that often, or at least cheaply. Also I haven't seen, or can't remember seeing, Rich Brophy before. Rich's MCing felt like it was all ad-libbing, but unlike some people like Adam Hills, he's actually very good at it. The first time Deanne came to Australia I saw her show and it was delightful, even though you didn't laugh all the time. Her second show, I wasn't that fond of, but tonight she did a stand-up routine, and a very strong one, rather than a show with a theme. There were laughs all the way as she turned the whole night into a relationship, with the audience, where she ended her set with a break-up song to us, that had us separating in mutual agreement. She was very good and got heaps of loud cheering, the most in fact, and just as much at the final mention at the end of the night. Lindsay also did ad- libbing with the audience for the first half of his set, and was just as good as Rich, as you would expect. The second half of his set was new material, about his wife giving birth to his 2 children. And as you would expect, from a comedian, it had all the icky details, like holding the strainer to catch the poo in the birthing pool. Even though no one in the room could directly relate to the material, everybody accepted it as a hilarious lesson in life. Again very funny and we learned something as well. Between 4-4.5
28.11.10 : Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows - Part 1 - movie
Adventure, Fantasy, Mystery : Harry Potter has to find the 4 Horcruxes to save the world. Lets face it, everybody is going to see it so that's enough of an explanation. David Stratton, from the Movie Show, said that the movie was too slow, and splitting it into 2 parts just looked like it was a grab for cash. From that, I assumed it would be a drag in places, but actually watching the movie I didn't feel that way. Sure it had a slow bit, but it wasn't tedious, and in fact the whole thing keep going at a reasonable pace, so that you didn't keep looking at your watch. It's only after, that you think they could have cut bits out and it wouldn't of made a difference, but really there is nothing wrong with it. 4
24.11.10 : Hermann's Heroes-The Stark Difference Between Comedians and Clowns : Hermann's Bar
I was feeling a bit down and was going to give this a miss, but then I read that Ray Badran and Daniel Townes(who didn't turn up) would be there, so I surmised, that even if the young comics didn't make me laugh, they should. The young comics were what I expected, trialling new material, and the audience seemed to be having a good time, but for me I had trouble relating to some of the stuff others were finding funny. Even though I didn't get most of the stuff tonight, I still found Carlo Ritchie was the funniest, and I actually laughed at his bit. Michael Hing was interesting, with chuckley material all night, but it was his set material that gave me the most laughs. For me it was going along ok, until we got to Ray Badran. I thought Ray was just as funny as always, and was the one who I laughed most at, and even though he made some mistakes he knew what to do, and just admitted to them, which got equal laughs anyway. Unfortunately for me, there were places that I laughed, but no one else did, and I just can't figure out why, and because no one laughed at what I thought was funny, I felt isolated. It was like no one in the room thinks like I do, so I'm not connected to the group anymore and just don't belong, but that probably is just me, and that end of year feeling I get. Once out of my comfort zone I realised that I wasn't relating to that much material, and so had trouble finding laughs, but really, that's irrelevant, because that's only one person in a crowd that sounded like they were having fun. The laughs were nearly equal for everyone, so I don't know who was better by them, but it sounded like they liked the show. The targeted audience sounded around 4ish, maybe between 3.5 and 4.
23.11.10 : The Amanda and Susie Show : Roxbury Hotel - impro
Gee someone must be popular, because the room was full. Last time I saw these 2 together they were doing a short support for the Axis of Awesome's birthday show, doing their BuckYou routine. To say it was a bit rude may be a bit of an understatement, because it was very inappropriate for ladies(that's a good name for a show), but also quite funny. Tonight they had a whole show to themselves, in what they called a celebration of friendship, but was actually a send off for Miss Amanda Buckley, because she is moving to Melbourne, prompting a lot of crying about the announcement, or was that just me. There was much dancing, singing, impro, stand-up, and cupcakes, in what was a good show, but in a cutesy way. Amanda and Susie Youssef started off with a good little impro scene where a person visits a psychologist, but keeps obsessing about being a teacher. Alex Lee & Ben Jenkins did 2 good scenes, the first being a choir singer singing opera with acidic ghosts and cats. You can see why Jon Williams is my number 1 player, because him, along with Brydie Lee-Kennedy, ripped up their 2 scenes. The first one being a racist that sold water, with Jon doing a Japanese urine drinking character. I don't know how Brydie does it, because she doesn't do impro much these days and hasn't done it for quite a while, but she turned it on in an instant and was funny right off the bat, to take it right up to Jon. You don't often see Dan Ilic do stand-up, but when he does he is quite good. We learned a little about his life and his disabled dad, and the scrapes he gets into, making his set quite funny on the night. We finished off the first half with Amanda serenading Susie with the funny Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich song, 15 Pounds (Away from My Love), which is a song about a boy deriding his girlfriend about her weight. In the second half my High School German came in handy when Jon started using the German words for Black and white, schwarz and weiß(pounced vise), in another racist scene with him smearing chocolate over his body like Schwarzkopf, which as you can work out means black head, to the extent of shoving jagged Toblerone up his bottom, and then exclaiming that he should have used Top Deck instead. We finished the impro with Ben and Alex doing another good scene. The night was finished off with the surprise guest of Eddie Perfect, I think from filming the show Offspring, that surprisingly did some stand-up, I though he only did musical comedy, of which he is not too bad at. The thing that surprised me was his delivery, it was just so natural and confidant that it elevated the material,(which wasn't that bad just on it's own). He finished with a song about a father that bought his young daughter breast implants, called Daddy's Tits. I find most musical songs are usually over, idea wise, at the first chorus, but this one was so well crafted it keep your interest, with numerous euphemisms about breasts, all the way to the end. A lot of fun 4-4.5
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22.11.10 : Best of PPR (plus a magician) #1 : The Orchard
I only heard about this event on the day and knew nothing about it, just that there was a Story Club regular, so I surmised that it would be something like that, but it wasn't, it was something very different. Story Club is more comedy based, but these stories are more fiction based, like something between Twilight Zone and the surreal. There was a mother that looked liked Fidel Castro and acted like him when working at a wax museum. A young girl that morphed into Richard III. A bartender that stabbed an alien and discovered Care Bears. A drunk has-been singer that explodes on stage. A man committing suicide. The ups and downs of the menstrual cycle, etc, with these stories being punctuated by a magician. The biggest problem I had was that they were still constructing the theatre, so the floor was the only option for seating, and because I'm old and not very flexible my back started giving me trouble right from the start, and because of the pain couldn't concentrate. But even then the stories weren't really written for laughs, even though some had chuckles, so it wasn't really catered for me. For me the best part of the show was the magician, which is odd because I have a pet hate of them(I feel like they are flim flam artists), but this guy had tricks that I couldn't work out, so they were entertaining. If I was comfortable I think it would have been better for me, even without the big laughs. I couldn't really tell how the audience felt, except for the exploding singer story that got good laughs at the end, because it really wasn't a comedy show, so there wasn't much reactions by them. I think they were 3.5ish, maybe 4, but for me 3
21.11.10 : Theatresports Cranston Cup - Final Chance Repechage! : Factory Theatre - impro
I don't know what made me think things would pick up, probably all the blistering semi's from the past, but it looks like I made a mistake with this one, and to think I had 2 other choices I could have gone for. I was so indifferent about the show I didn't even want to blog about it, and just wanted to post "Not Fun" as a entry. Then I though I could pad it out with the highlights, but there was only one for me, so I thought I will add what teams did wrong just to fill some lines, but I couldn't bother. Overall nothing really happened in the first half, which wore me down so much that I tuned out in the second half, even though there were a few spot that were interesting in it. I think that was similar for some of the audience, especially the ones in front of me, because they were bouncing around and being enthusiastic to be out with friends, but by the second half they totally quieten down, and their body language was very different, like that of being bored. I scored 4 scenes a 4, but in 3 of them I was being generous, so the only scene that grabbed me was The French Army's - Star-crossed Priest. Besides being good it had something different. While the 2 priest were having a conversation the other 2 players acted it out as a mime, like a picture in picture replay. It wasn't all doom and gloom because when I was leaving I overheard a few people saying it was good, I guess that's the level they are used to these days, so maybe for the rest of the audience it wasn't that bad. The big thing that may have pushed it over the line, entertainment wise, was that the players ignored the contest and jumped in other teams scenes, one of the teams at the bottom got a 5 when they were helped. If they use this tactic in the Grand Final I think there will be enough entertainment so the audience won't be disappointed and will come back. 3
19.11.10 : Caitlin Harnett : The Rocks-Markets by Moonlight - music
Warning to all middle age men with low testosterone levels, her sweet cutesy quirky voice may make you cry. Even though I'm not into the slow emotional stuff anymore, I still liked Caitlin. There is just something about her voice and how she sings with an accent, like Angie Hart, that's nice, and coupled with less distractions on this street stage, because the clouds kept people away, I thought she was quite good. 4
18.11.10 : Smart Casual presents Captain Entree : Roxbury Hotel
The new show is nothing like Smart Casual, gone is all the quirky funny stuff and it's replaced by a made up story of a level between Storytelling and Story Club, but with songs added. Storytelling is more real stories told normally, like an adventure you would tell your friends, where's Story Club stories range between well crafted real life stories that are embellished to be more entertaining, all the way to crazy surreal stories. Smart Casual's show tries to be like the latter, a fictional story that is somewhat real. The show starts with a recording of where the last show ended, with them being applauded at the end of their last song, "Why is there a polar at my party", the tape fades out and we are shown a sign that moves the story 3 months further on. The story is basically an adventure story where they sign on to crew for a Captain that goes sailing around the world. They stop at various cities, even a land locked one I think, and have adventures. Unfortunately the story is not that exceptional, especially for me after hearing the great ones from Story Club, and was more real than surreal, and the songs are more just filler rather than having any hook. If this is a Fringe Festival show I would say it's not to bad, because nearly all the Fringe stuff I have seen is nothing special, and so would award it a 3.5, but if this is a Comedy Festival show I would say it isn't that great, and give it a 3. I know it was only a run through reading, but I can tell it's still only OK to watch, but just not that funny. Between 3-3.5
18.11.10 : Wild Target - movie
Action, Comedy, Crime : The Movie Show said it was good, but the people though other wise by lack of attendance, because this got reduced sessions after a week. Because it was the reduced price movie of the week I went to see for myself. A professional Hit man's routine is interrupted when he finds himself drawn to one of his intended victims, Rose. He spares her life, unexpectedly acquiring in the process a young apprentice, Tony. A Rom Com with hardly any laughs, if any, and a romantic part that looks preposterous with such an age difference. Just a time killer, watchable but rubbish. 2
17.11.10 : Full Body Contact No Love Junior Tennis : Hermann's Bar - impro
After getting all my sh*t together I was looking forward to a performance greater than a 4, like last time, but for me I don't think it got there, but then again I was late and got a seat at the back, which isn't ideal. From what I saw the back of the room was going nuts at everything, with less activity coming from the front. I don't mind the hooting and hollering, and even expect some talking at the back, it was the end of the year after all and people were having fun, so wasn't a problem, it's just that I missed some stuff, which may account for how I felt. Excuse me if some names are wrong, some of the players were changed on the night and I'm a shocker for faces and names so I went off the posted list.
Jeremy Yao, Arghya 'Bookie' Gupta, Chad O'Neill, Elisha Kennedy, Matt McLaren, Ollie Burton
The scene started in the office of a scientist that discovers climate change, but when he tells his boss he is fired because he is informed that climate change was disproved 15 years ago. It quickly cuts to Jamaica where a couple(with Jamaican accents, that morphed into Indian accents), gets swept away by a disproved tidal wave. The tidal wave is so annoyed at being disproved that it kept washing people away. The scientist enlists the might of the self absorbed Bono(Jeremy, who took the character to the extreme with a brilliant over exaggerated impersonation), to help prove his theory. Adding a known celebrity and exaggerating a character is always a good way to engage an audience instantly, because there is a known reference, and was why the Prequels and Sequels season was so funny. Jeremy Yao was on fire tonight, and played a kind of mentor role that quickly cut in to anything that wasn't working, and his characters were his usual over the top stuff that gets genuine laughs. The story had those fast scene cuts to other stories, that keeps you interested because something is always happening. I liked it and thought it was good.
Jim Fishwick, Michael Richardson, Sam Jenkins, Charlie Mitchell, Janek Gonsalkorale
We started with an SBS news report with Lee Lin Chin, but when she cuts to her reporters in the field things don't go well. We are transported to a SBS board meeting where they decide to fire everyone. Back at the news desk Lee Lin Chin reads out a report about the loss of her own job, and all the workers jobs. She rounds everyone up and heads to the pub where she gets an idea to start a new news service with a lisp. The idea is a bomb and soon they are all penniless and on the street in a protesting against SBS. They have no food, or cloths, or money, but they do have guns and start robbing paper shops, but this backfires when they steal paper that is too small for their protest signs. Since they have a large stock pile of guns they decide to sell them at a lemonade stand where they meet what they think is a communist, but is actually Rupert Murdoch who is starting a newspaper army. They finally decide to attack him with their mole army, because he is the devil incarnate, and a battle ensues. This one was more of a continuous story, with nothing really to complain about, just that it had a touch less laughs than the first team, so it was just behind.
James Colley, Pat Magee, Ben Jenkins, Nick Fischer, Sertan Saral, Alex Lee
A down trodden bartender that hates his job, because all his fellow workers are di*ks, is chastised by his boss for having dirty glasses. The boss then thinks he is some sort of magician and keeps dropping smoke pellets everywhere, which chokes the bartender, and then reveals himself as the secret shopper, that checks up on the bartenders business practices. At home he again is down trodden, by the father of the family who he is renting from. The father chastises his own son for being slow and sends him away to do maths, and then turns his attention to the bartender. The bartender finally gets the better of him by correcting one of his statement, that he is from A bar, and not THE bar, because, by definition, there is more than one bar. This reveals the father's one weakness, poor English. The secret shopper, come magician, come boss, come spy, phones the bartender, and is put in a conference call with the father, who is beating his son (This is where the off stage antics took over, with a funny, but not very PC, conversation between the father and son). The secret shopper waiting on the front steps of the bartenders house gets bored with the conference call and comes inside and starts steeling his belongings. The secret shopper's spider fingers jab the bartender, and then doorbell rings, he goes to open it but keeps turning the handle the wrong direction. When he finally gets it open, the last remaining bartender from the bar enters, telling them there is no one looking after the bar. The shopper, now a spy, climbs out the back window, but because of his ineptitude with door handles ends up in the fathers lavatory pulling the handle on the toilet. The Bartender gets infuriated at everyone's incompetence, and calls them into the room. He then tells them off for not doing their job and is given the position of boss. This one was also a continuous story, but at a level between the first two teams.
Michael Hing, Bridie Connell, Phil Roser, Genevieve Fricker
Lately Michael Hing has been adopting a kind of sweet little banter style, like a subtle quirky conversation between characters, that is proving quite effective. It starts with a boy giving his girlfriend a box of mulch as a present, but she's not happy about it because last week he gave her a box of mulch and promptly tried to bury her in the rose garden. Then, Michael being Michael, if you know him, came up with his usual funny retort when he's cornered, of "And now your being racist". He goes with the racist idea and tries to explain the difference between their races, but the crowd could see where this was heading and were thinking that this is sounding a bit racist in it's self, something he just accused her of, he quickly realised this, and covers it by saying that she is from a race of pretty people. He then comes up with, trying not to start another racist statement, by picking a race that is pretty neutral, and saying that he is an Eskimo. He goes on to explain that mulch is very rare in his frozen homeland, and that she shouldn't have called the cops when he tried to bury her because it's a sign of affection, because he thinks she is fertile. He quickly adds the the tick-tock phrase, that's get the audience sighing because it's the female running out of time biological clock reference, and says she needs planting soon. Meanwhile a brother is questioning his older brother(Barry) if he stole his stuff, to which Barry replies "No". Michael then comes into the room with hands stretched wide, like a being nailed to cross, and says "Well then who stole my cloths", "Look at my d**k", exemplifying his nakidity with groin accentuations. The funny thing is once the idea has been planted in your head your brain tells you it's true and you laugh in embarrassment. Michael really milks it by forcing everyone to look at his imaginary appendage with lines like "Look at the weirdness", and "It's mostly pimples", which got great groans from the audience, and even slow clapping. Barry tries to cover him with a sheet but he throws it away and again exposes himself to him as a punishment. Next the girls get together because one is upset at being given a box of mulch. The scene then cuts back to the flat mates, with Michael still exposing himself on purpose, but this time Barry doesn't bat an eyelid and says "I see you found one of your socks", implying it's covering is junk, and again the idea is implanted in your head and it's even funnier. Then to get back at Phil(Barry) because he outsmarted him by covering his imaginary boy parts, when he is trying to expose them, Michael replies with "It's your sock", which got even more great groans from the audience when that idea got in their heads. Barry then asks his brother if he would help him with finding a girlfriend, and Michael says he has just the person for it but he will have to tongue pash her on stage, which Phil wasn't keen on doing in public, but the crowd cheered the notion on. He introduces him to his ex kissing partner, who then runs off stage screaming because Michael is still nude. I think you can tell by how many word I typed for this one that I though it was good
FourWords - Steen Raskopoulos, Susie Youssef, Carlo Ritchie, Tom Walker
A man writes a ransom note to a family about their kidnapped son, complete with a picture of di*k and balls. At the family house the father is wearing stripy lingerie that is quite slimming, they read the ransom note via a voice over. The voice says that they will force the son to dance to death if the demands aren't met, but the father doesn't want to read further and hides in his garden shed tending his tomatoes. When the mother says that he should forget about the tomatoes and help his son, he concludes that the tomatoes are bi-annuals and can be planted at a later date. They find a return address on the envelope and set off. The mother is very worried about her son dancing, but the father thinks that maybe it will be good for him, because they themselves trained to do Swan Lake in their 1957 tragedy. But the father, fearfully of animals because of the swan tragedy, says if he sees him dancing with them he will be forced to take his belt off.
Meanwhile a man is vacuuming a carpet when his bowels uncontrollably evacuate themselves. We find his bowels are being controlled by an entity that forces him to find and audience that he must play a concert to, from his anus. He initially refuses, because that it will kill them all, but the voice insists and threatens him with defecation to death.
The son finally dances free and does the dozy dog and the I like to meow-it meow-it. He meets a girl after dancing with a swarm of bees and quickly swells up from an allergic reaction, and is then rushed to the hospital with the disco fever. At the hospital Dr David loses the son but professor Jeremiah needs to feed him an urgent blue pill. At the same time the defecating man is also admitted and is feed a blue pill. A mysterious overseer questions Dr David's resolve about his competence, just before he is about to operate on the son to cure his dancing. The dad walks in and tells the son to stop dancing, because no one has that much energy to sustain dancing for that long a period of time and then he drifts off to another 1957 tragedy.
I can't say it was their best one, but it was good enough, it's just that I like to be blown away, and really in this room the crowd are still going to like it, but that's just the nature of the beast. Consistency is something that is hard to guarantee in impro, it's not like when you find something that works you can repeat it for a known response, with impro every time is a new deal. I though it was going alright in the first half, because the crowd was making the same amount of noise as before, but halfway through the talkers got told off, and when they settled down and I could hear the crowd was quieter. Carlo came up with another character(Dr David's overseer) and didn't just use a funny voice and accent but added a physical element, that made him actually be the character, so the character really came to life, and made him more engaging. For me overall between 3.5-4, but that could just be seating, the crowd sounded greater than a 4, but less than 4.5.
16.11.10 : Machete - movie
Action, Crime, Thriller : An ex Federale(Mexican police) officer is hired to kill a Senator, but doesn't go through with it. I don't know what possessed me to want to go see this splatter-fest, because Tarantino's crap turned me against them, but I did, and it ended up being a very fun movie. This movie is an exaggerated splatter-fest, making it a bit comical so you laugh and the craziness, unlike Tarantino that uses that sadistic blood-fest which is just plain off putting. It had everything, sexy girls, over the top action, a in depth story with lots of side pieces, craziness, etc. It was just plain fun all the way. 4
14.11.10 : Theatresports Cranston Cup - Semi Final # 2 : Factory Theatre - impro
This was another weird one. The amount of entertainment was roughly at the same level as last week, but the crowd was much larger and more enthusiastic, so it felt like it was better. The players seemed to be fairly technical in execution, but it felt like everyone was rushing things to make things happen, making the scenes feel busy and muddled. Every player in All The Single Ladies is a good, yet there just wasn't any magic. It just seems like they are tripping over each other by being too polite, rather than someone taking control. SACS Appeal showed some nice stuff, like their status swap cricket scene, and their Sumo video game, but on the whole their scenes felt a bit too busy. More Ads than Game Time also felt busy, but at least their last scene with an emotional replay, player reduction, was good, because one of their players had to replay a 4 person scene by himself. The Leichhardt Lions n Tigers n Bears were solid but nothing inspiring. STEEN! was good in 2 scenes, firstly with the always correct trainer training the funny Carlo buffoon character, and secondly the crazy Bible story. If anything The Swinging Independents had the problem of too many people taking control, so it felt a bit like people were coming over the top of each other. With that aside they pulled out 2 ripper scenes, one being a Shakespearian office scene about a stapler, and two, flying on a budget space flight. The laughs for the latter was so funny that people were seeing spots, and gives an indication of how funny scenes were in the past, and if you can imagine that happening 4 to 8 times in a night you get an idea at what level the entertainment was back then. I have to tip my hat to Tom Dunstan, because he brought back memories from the old days when everything he did was clever. Tom has the ability to add details that are so subtle but add so much. Like when he did the brushing of his teeth mime, it was so simple yet very detailed, making every move totally clear, and the details were exaggerated and complete, like adding the cheek bulging when the fake toothbrush presses on the inside of his mouth, and this just made his small filler funny just on it's own. And when doing the passenger on the cheap space flight he would just droop his shoulders, and this little detail gave you an instant feel that the passengers are down trodden. Everything he does is surgeon precise and looks very clever, and he uses everything available, be it mime, body language, a wise crack, etc. It gives you an indication of the style that was done back then, like smart academics with a large knowledge base doing it, rather than the style now that is more surreal, like from an artistic view point. Every time someone did something clever on stage the young people next to me would go crazy nuts with clapping and laughter, even if it wasn't by their team, and this kind of typifies what a impro audience wants, but the stuff that wasn't clever they were a bit deflated at and started getting bored with it. 3.5-4
13.11.10 : Coffee : Newtown Theatre
I was going to see this show at the Sydney Fringe but it was pulled at the last minute, so when it came up again I thought, I'm doing nothing so I might as well give it another shot. Unfortunately I thought it was going to be something like that TV show Taxi Confessions, where customers private conversations are recounted, but it was more like facts from an elitist Barista. Things started a bit weird when you sat on stage at tables in a mock café, complete with a professional coffee machine, and the performer offering to make coffees for the audience. The show started with the technical mechanics of making a coffee from a commercial coffee machine, and then on to stereotyping people based on the coffee of their choice, but delivered from a arrogant elitist view point, like wine connoisseurs seem up themselves because they know useless trivial facts about the nuances of wines, with de-café soy drinkers being the lowest of low of coffee drinkers. It then went on to personal details about how he felt when doing his job. Like secretly falling in love with a stranger that would frequent his establishment, but instead going to bed with teenagers pretending to be adults, by drinking coffee. And lastly feeling a bit worthless about being just a barista, because the general public don't see his profession as anything significant, and because of this he let it rip about what he thought of his somewhat snobby customers. The show was like the other Fringe shows, in that there it wasn't anything outstanding, but because it's your first time viewing you tolerate it more because it's novel. The thing that surprised me was it was quite short, approximately 35 minutes total, but at least you got a coffee if you hung around. 2.5
12.11.10 : Skyline - movie
Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller : Aliens land on earth and start invading. If you look at the story, is very similar to War of the Worlds, but set in modern times. I think it is supposed to be a Sci-Fi/horror/suspense/action, but the suspense wasn't suspenseful, and it only had a few horror bits that were effective. I found it a bit slow going most of the way, but it did finish with action/horror. I was going to give it a 2, but I must be a bit tolerant, because the audience was swearing about it all the way from the theatre to the street, which kind of made me think that most people will think it is s#%t. 1
12.11.10 : Sister Madly : The Rocks - music
As you can tell by the Crowded House reference in their name, they come from NZ, and to say they don't play many shows is an understatement. In the 10 years they have been here I haven't see many adds in the papers for their shows, that's why I was a bit keen to see them again, and in fact this is only the second time I have seen them. There sound is a bit dated, but they have beautiful voices, and their early song are good, so I thought it would be good to see them again, and for free. Unfortunately the open street isn't a great location for delicate harmonies, and I found their new stuff too busy and not very interesting, but I still liked the early stuff from their first EP, even though there is only 4 songs on it. 3
09.11.10 : Full Body Contact MO Love Tennis : Roxbury Hotel - impro
Now I know why critics are so cynical. If you do fun things too much, it goes from magic to monotonous. I was going to take the week off, to hopefully recharge, but I saw the cast for tonight's show and it looked like it should be good so I went, against my better judgment. I wasn't really in the mood to be there but at least the girls Amanda Buckley & Brydie Lee Kennedy lived up to expectations in 2 scenes. 1, where a apple farmer leaves his daughter, for no apparent reason, to fend for herself, but returns 3 years latter in disguise to see if she is kind to strangers, and 2, their wonderful explorer looking for the Seahorse Mistress but finding a mermaid, without haemorrhoids, that dies at the end. Both had that very funny word play between the characters, that is a bit of a trademark when these 2 get together, with the second scene being magic. Carlo Ritchie & Tom Walker first scene was initially good, even though it was toilet humour, when Tom came up with a race of people that lived in the sewage system, with them pouring effluent on people that they praised. Their third scene with Tom acting as a belt and attaching himself to Carlo's waist had a lot of physical humour, and ended with Carlo dead lifting the not insignificant weight of Tom off the floor, which resulted in cheers from the audience. Also Alex Lee was good as host. These days my threshold for entertainment is a 4, before I can enjoy myself, so this show was just ok for me. The crowd liked it better. Between 3.5-4
09.11.10 : The Social Network - movie
Biography, Drama : The story of Facebook. Initially I thought that it wouldn't be that interesting, but so many people said is was good, so I thought, there may be enough technical stuff about computers to be interesting to give it a shot, and I found the story interesting enough to make a movie from it. It's basically a headstrong, weren't we all at that age, boy in a man's world. It's like the saying "Jack of all trades, master of none", but with Mark Zuckerberg being the master. Unfortunately having the dedication in one field makes you short in others, so he made mistakes, but at least he knew which direction he wanted to go. between 3.5-4
08.11.10 : Dungeon Crawl - Sydney : Laugh Garage Syd - impro
From what we were told this show is based on Dungeons & Dragons, but without using the actual name because of copyright laws. I don't know much about D&D because I came from the era before, Wargaming, and when we heard about it back then it seemed a bit illogical, because you made up stuff during the game, rather than following set rules, so it wasn't that compatible to the way we thought back then. Going by this show it does look like a cross between wargaming and those early computer adventure games, or for the younger people, it's like interactive impro, where things come to a crossroad that can change the direction of the show. In this show there is a basic story that the players follow, which is dispensed by the Host/Dungeon Master(the person that makes sure the rules are followed and rolls the die when decisions are needed). At points problems arise that the players have to make up solutions for, and then a die is rolled to find out if the solution worked or failed. There is also another co-host that plays all the problem characters that pop up during the story, as a visual representation, that can also think for himself and has an influence. The show starts with the cast stating what character they will be playing. These characters can be quite elaborate, a luxury not afforded in normal impro, giving the players a lot more to work with to milk the character. And it seems the more elaborate the setup for the character, the more the intelligent audience likes it, when the traits get re-referenced. Tonight half the players knew about D&D and half didn't, just like the audience, giving those people an advantage. The 3 players(Dave Bloustien, Dave Harmon, Carlo Ritchie) that knew what was going and used their impro skills to embellished their characters even more with funny accents and mannerisms. Because of her not knowing what to expect beforehand, I think, if Amanda Buckley knew that she could have taken her character that far she would have pulled out one from her long list of wacky ones. Eddie Perfect was also a player that was finding his feet, but that was good, because he asked questions during the strange sections that didn't really make that much sense, so as to clarify them, and that just helped me and the people who didn't know about D&D to work things out. The baseline story was quite simple, but I only noticed that while typing this because the show was so entertaining at the time, it entailed the 5 adventurers being sent on a task by the mayor to find out the reason why the cows were being killed. They went through a forest, and then past some hostile goblins, past a bad wolf, then to a cave, past a huge one eye creature, and then on to finally defeat the dangerous dragon and take his treasure. Dave Harmon made the mistake of picking a short character, like a dwarf or something like that, that had the others doing short jokes all night. So as to retaliate against Dave Bloustien, the main instigator of the short jokes, he always set the scene up so that Dave B had to go first and face the danger alone, in the hope that he got killed somewhere along the way. But after 4 attempts the die wasn't rolling his way and he survived to the end. Carlo Ritchie did what Carlo does best, but with a different accent this time, and played the fisherman, in his crazy style, that got good laughs all night. Eddie Perfect made up 3 song jingles to help the story, that I unfortunately couldn't really hear them because there was no mic for him, and Amanda Buckley came up with the solutions when thing got difficult. Funny points were when Carlo saw all the monsters as trouts. Dave B asking Dave H why he didn't send him first when they got to the treasure room, as he had made him do 4 times before. Dave H stuffing the treasure in his ass to hide the fact that he was steeling it from the other characters. Dave H steeling the fishing rod from the wolf, an item Carlo the fisherman wanted, and generally being greedy at any opportunistic moment. The show was funny but I think the improvisers didn't know how far they could push it so they didn't really go to extremes, if they added a crazier element it would be even funnier for the audience. The show felt like it ended too soon, so it must have been entertaining, and the rather large crowd must of agreed because they laughed throughout. 4
07.11.10 : Theatresports Cranston Cup - Semi Final # 1 : Factory Theatre - impro
It was a weird one. I can't remember a semi that wasn't blistering funny, which makes them the highlight of the series, but this wasn't one of those. The scores in the judging has been spot on this year, unlike some years, and reflected the entertainment value quite well. So if I tell you 80% of the scores were a 3 you will probably get the idea what it's was like. Back in the old days you might see some 5's in the first half but you would definitely see quite a few in the second half, but tonight there was only 2 total and they were iffy. All the teams put up a steady performance, but there wasn't much that was outstanding. Bavaria’s Wurst had 2 funny scenes, one with their Mr T phone app, which they used effectively last time, and secondly with their Gone with the Wind cotton pickers V's polyester farmers scene, which had some nice characters. The Tri-State Ghost Hunting Society pulled out an opera at the end, which could have been more technically accurate by getting the solo singers treating their song like an Oscar winning moment, but because it was difficult it got awarded extra points and the drew level with the Bavaria’s Wurst to tie for the win. Other mentions go to Louise McManus from the The Moreton Bay Pigs for being good in the Kung Fu endowments, and also in the Deathship movie reconstruction. There isn't much else to mention because most of the scenes that were awarded 4's felt more like 3.5's on my entertainment scale. The night end up like the Grand Final, like everyone suffering from stage fright rather than taking a risk and enjoy themselves, so it was nothing that hasn't been seen before. 3.5
04.11.10 : Chuckle Hut IV : Epping Hotel
Wow it's been a long time since I was last here, maybe 4 years, and even longer since I first came here, maybe 10 years, for the comedy, and even earlier than that for the night club, which I was surprised is still running after I think 20 years. Even though the crowd numbered about 30 they were a good crowd, so the night ended up quite alright. Our host Jim Rochford was good, and even though one of the new comics in the first half was a bit iffy, most of the new comers were alright, and even quite funny, like Michelle Betts. Our headliner Clint Paddison was always going to be funny so it ended up an ok night. 3.5
03.11.10 : Story Club and What a Way to Make a Living : Hermann's Bar
Ben Jenkins started us off, as he is prone to do by virtue of him being our regular host, with a story that was as clever as it was funny. He took a liberal interpretation of today's theme, bad jobs people have endured, by turning it around and telling us about trying to get the best job possible. And the best job in Ben's eyes was, applying for the job of Silvio Berlusconi, but not the political Silvio Berlusconi, more like the misogynistic womaniser Silvio Berlusconi. Ben added an extra element to his story, like some did at the last Story Club, but somewhat different. It was in the form of of a dialogue between him and Silvio Berlusconi, be it that Silvio Berlusconi was played by the disembodied voice of Carlo Ritchie from the back of the room, and not in, as you would expect, an Italian accent, but instead in a surprising aristocratic English gentleman's accent. Ben did his research and incorporated questionable antics of the Italian Prime Minister as examples of traits that would be suitable for the job. Like citing the example of when Silvo took money from the Mafia to finance one of his projects, and using this example for a question he asked about when Ben took the initiative in a job. It was a clever play on different facets making it very good story.
Diana Tjoeng's story was a sweet little tale about Surprise Gecko, a Gecko that surprised her. She stared off with the fact that the main job of animals was to stay live long enough to mate. One day on a trip with her mother, who frequently visited her home country of Cambodia, she found herself and her brother sleeping in a old 5 star hotel, that has probably had half of it's stars fall off along with the pipework. They are trying to sleep above the bug infested floor when her brother spots an unfamiliar lizard thing on the wall inside their room. On inquiry with her now well under the influence mother, who had been partying all night, as to what this green animal was, she was horrified to find out from her that the lizard's sole purpose was to eat the necks of children in their sleep, which, as you would expect may hamper the actual process of sleeping. It was as sweet as it was delightful, and overall was good.
Mark Sutton's story was a ripping adventure story about his time working in a bottle shop, which ultimately ends up the places for dispensing the cheap drug of choice for the less fortunate masses that need to escape reality on a regular basis. This in turn makes some of it's patrons, but more likely criminals, less than ideal. His last story in the cavalcade of occurrences while working there could have ended quite seriously, because of a knife yielding ICE addict, but it was so well written that the hilarity covered the severity of the situation, and when an oblivious patron formed a queue behind the dangerous maniac it just got funnier. Mark's story was excellent and extremely funny and got the most laughs of the night.
Michael Richardson's story wasn't exactly what I signed up for, but it was still nice. This didn't actually effect the rest of the audience because they cheered just as loudly at the end of this one as for the other stories. In fact the audience cheered equally for all the story tellers, so I couldn't really pick which story they liked better anyway. It was a comedy horror story about a typical obnoxious American family that had just taken possession of the haunted halls of Castle Brannenstein.
Alice Grundy's story seemed a little sad in places when her employers didn't fulfil their moral obligations, mainly because they bathed in the light the of their own crapulence and put themselves first. Her tale was of being the assistant to the CEO of a certain think tank of a dubious fund raising organisation. As a taste of what it was like in the organisation she told of a story where one of her female employers insisted she wear lipstick, even though the lady was a staunch feminist, so as to looks nice, which gave the impression that she was lost in her own hypocrisy. I suppose being a junior employee is always going to land you with menial tasks, which is a shame, but when it's all over I suppose we can all laugh about it.
Kate Leaver's story lightened the mood when she had to deal with spoiled brats while performing duties as the Cherry Blossom Fairy at a party. Being somewhat abrupt, from her all nighter of under-age drinking, she not so politely put them in their place, when they ran amok, by using the psychological technique of reducing their self worth by telling them to F#%k Off, quietly in their ear. The story was good and a lot of fun for us, even though it wasn't equally for our storyteller.
Alex Lee's lack of being assertive became a hindrance in her tale of how she let a total stranger give her a lift in the totally unfamiliar city of Melbourne. And how the driver may have a compromised sense of reality, because of her being a WITCH, or someone of the lesser evolved species, just plain batty, when she started going on about the rhetoric of the Liquid Crystal philosophy. The story was initially a bit strange but soon got funny, and was quite good overall.
Zoe Norton Lodge story was also a bit sad, after you got over the astonishment of the ridiculousness of it. She was the employee of a incompetent, and possible drunkard, it the tale of The Devil Wears a Denim Winter One Piece. What Miss Denim, Zoe's boss, kind of didn't realise she was cutting her own throat, and her employees throats, when she decided to not do her job and keep the business sustainable. Her greed and laziness, and overall flakiness, was slowly grinding the business to the ground. When the companies not very correct details were discovered, and a grant was rejected, things came to a head and Miss Denim flipped out. Zoe and her friend sorted out the immediate problem of the next event, and then went to the shareholders for resolution of the companies troubles. The company eventually folded, but luckily after they had already left, and even with all the ordeals she had to go through, Zoe admitted that if you didn't laugh you would cry. Sorry if I made this one seem a bit dark, but the story was good but in a different way, because you were WTF-ing more than you were laughing. It was another very good story, but in a different way compared to her usual stories that aren't as confronting.
Most of us can tell a funny incident from our lives, but it usually it can't compare to something like this, because the stories are so well crafted and they end up more than the sum of the facts. Between 4-4.5 for me but the crowd sounded like 4.5
02.11.10 : Full Body Contact Melbourne Cup Tennis : Roxbury Hotel - impro
There was enough big names to think the show should be good, and it kind of was. Jon Williams & Cale Bain blitzed it in their first scene about lamas. Cale again treated this as a contest, for which Jon was always up for, which made it difficult to remember all the details, because there was so much crap flying around with them trying to out do each other with ideas. I think there were 2 Mexicans, with one teaching the other how to handle lamas by demonstrating it on a chair. One then goes on a quest to find Clifford the orange, then red, flying lama. When he finally finds him, Clifford burns him with his laser eyes. They both played every bit to the max with crazy ideas, characters, and accents, Jon even tried to pronounce university courses, with an over the top Mexican accent, that had him pronouncing university juneaniversity. It's kind of a shame that these 2 weren't around in the Rumble series, because the whole point of that show was one team to out do the other. There was even games in that series where individuals battled against each other, just like tonight, to gain points for their team. They were on fire and could have easily used their allotted 19 minutes in the first scene, but the lights were cut at half way so that they would have enough time for their 2 other scenes. Their meeting at the UN, with them taking turns doing funny accents, was good, and their Pumpkin Peter was better than nice. Steen Raskopoulos & Carlo Ritchie best scene was the gym scene, with Carlo weightlifting babies and children. Their overweight plane passenger was short but good, and had the line "My leg is getting sucked into your mass", when Carlo was sucked into Steen's bloated body. Their Biltong(a kind of cured meat originating in South Africa) scene had extra appeal to the South African member of the audience, and was better than nice. Amanda Buckley & Dave Bloustien best scene was a guy that was secretly feeding a woman a drug that made her loose weight, by making the fat parts drop off. It had the desired effect when her bum fell off, but unfortunately her hair and a single boob did like wise. The man then glued the parts to himself and found out what it was like to be ridiculed for being over weight. 4
02.11.10 : The Town - movie
Crime, Drama, Thriller : 4 bank robbers from Charlestown rob a bank, but the loose cannon in the group takes a hostage, that is later release unharmed. Another of the robbers shadows her to see if she will cause trouble by identifying them. It's a drama from the poor end of town but not depressing like those dark British ones. I found the loose cannon character played too well, because I hated that arrogant character, but that's just me. Even though this really isn't my thing, I don't think the public would complain about it, and would probably like it. 3
02.11.10 : Life As We Know It - movie
Comedy, Drama, Romance : Two friends of a couple, that hate each other, are brought together to look after their child. For a Rom-Com it not super big on the Com, but what can you expect when the subject matter is a little bit serious. It's humours, touching, and sad in places, so it gets quite emotional, a bit like Marley and Me. I liked it and laughed in places, but it's probably more for the girls. 4
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