All posts tagged: comedy festival

Good Morning Mofo – MICF Review

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Good Morning  Mofo is filled with a cocktail of characters that you’d normally see and hear behind the scenes and on set of a breakfast show and Zoe McDonald plays them all. Upon entering The Bagging Room at the Malthouse Theatre, we were greeted with Jenny who as she explained “was the intern. She wasn’t getting paid for this but was very excited to be here.” This interaction with the audience we would soon realise was a large part of the whole show. The hour-long show moves through a series of characters for Women’s Week at Channel’s 8 Brunch show and Zoe Mcdonald transitions seamlessly between each. Taking apart the world of morning TV, characters including Chloe Davies the host with the perfect newsreader voice, Jessica Murphy the ‘bogan’ member of the audience, Rachelle the weather lady and also our favourite, Jenny the intern plus more – Each characterised by a different voice, rigid hand or flailing of the arm making them unique. The audience is never left questioning which currently character is on stage …

Willem Richards is Bringing out the Cheeseboard – MICF Review

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Once you’ve seen a full grown man dance in a Kylie Minogue outfit, you’re going to find it hard to be surprised by a show again. At Willem Richards’ last show at this year’s Comedy Fest, he truly was “Crushing life in the dick”. Richards plays a whole host of outrageous characters as he tells us about his relationship with his Dad/ Tennis Coach. A man who has the personality and expressions of a Muppet, as Richards’ hair and mouth flap up and down with an incredible amount of elasticity. As well as his intense passion for his son’s tennis career, the best thing about Richards senior is that he brings out the cheeseboard. There’s brie, there’s cheddar, there’s a multitude of crackers to be passed round. So when the gentleman at the end of my row puts the cheeseboard down you can feel the whole room staring daggers at him. Luckily this is rectified by Richards before an angry mob forms. Another sparkling character is Spanish Ken Doll, Miguel Barcelona. Although he is heartbroken …

Bobby’s Bits – MICF Review

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“I’m so gay I own a flannel shirt”. The next 45 minutes are a chuckle-inducing snap-shot into Bobby Macumber’s somewhat wacky life. With a Father who tries his best to be politically correct, a Mum who’s a champion at aggressive hide and seek, and a girlfriend who’s obsessed with watches but useless at time keeping; Macumber has been provided with plenty of fodder for her show. Through a series of stories we see Macumber is gifted at creating characters on stage. Her trip to Bali gives her the opportunity to show off her skills, as the audience meet the larger than life locals with interesting marketing techniques. Although it is confusing when the Balinese market sellers sound like they’re very closely related to Apu from The Simpsons. Each of her stories are very much self-contained, but Macumber could work on her transitions between sketches. It’s obvious there is a theme to the show, but it is missing the flow that a great comedy piece needs. What really stands out are Macumber’s comedy songs. Her parody …

Tegan’s City of Love – MICF Review

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Tegan Higginbotham is celebrating a very special year this year. It’s her 10 consecutive year in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, it’s the year she turned to 28, and this was finally the  year she achieved all her childhood dreams! Opening her show with old home movies  of herself running amok at 2 years at 9 months , we instantly fell in love with Tegan and her self-depricating humour. Moving through her teenage years, we were treated to hilarious stories of foibles and follies, from her teenage, Dear Dolly diaries filled with amateur poetry through to amusing and somewhat violent sketches including a Mr Squiggle lookalike being burnt at the cross, for which even Tegan couldn’t explain. Taking inspiration from the City of Love itself; Paris, Tegan’s show was a filled with a series of hiccups she faced as she tried to chase her childhood dreams: a) Fall in love in Paris b) Become an action movie star; and c) Be magic. Like an episode of This is Your Life, Tegan treated us to all sorts of …

Quiz in My Pants: Hardcore Trivia – MICF Review

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Everyone loves a little bit of a Trivia night. It brings out the best and worst of people. Mate against mate, even date against date – unleashing the competitive streak in all of us. So when invited along to check out ‘Quiz in My Pants’ as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, we jumped at the chance to put our mad trivia skills to the test.   This was not your traditional pub trivia, and certainly not a show for the prudish (or under 18), but it was light, sparkly and had just the right amount of audience interaction, helped along by it’s later time slot by which point many audience members had had a chance to have a wine or two and loosen up.  On entry groups are given their quiz answer sheet and team name – we’re talking clever pun names like ‘Shaving Ryan’s Privates’ and ‘Inspect Her Gadget’, and that set the scene for the rest of the show as Quiz Mistress ‘Quizzie’ and her sidekick ‘Rusty’ (Cassie Vagliviello and Brendan Ewing) …

Melbourne Comedy Festival

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The Melbourne Comedy Festival is celebrating it’s 30 birthday this year and they’re throwing one giant big bash to celebrate. From its humble beginnings with 56 shows across 33 venues, the Melbourne Comedy Festival has become one of the biggest in the world. This year the festival will put another cracking program along with some special events to recognize this very special milestone. 30th Birthday Bash – Gala Raise your glasses to 30 years of rip-snorting laughter and belly aches at the 30th Birthday Bash. The line up so far: Tommy Little and Cal Wilson will host Eddie Perfect, Rich Hall, Greg Fleet, The Umbilical Brothers, Wendy Harmer, Luke McGregor, Gerry Connolly, Nina Conti, Rod Quantock, Rachel Berger and Simon Munnery , wth more names to come. The Big Fat (30th Birthday) Comedy Quiz Think you’re the queen bee or king of comedy trivia? Take part in the big fat comedy quiz and battle it out for the crown. Play as an individual or play as a team but there can be only one super-fan to outwit them …