All posts tagged: comedy

MICF Review: G’Day Comrade

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G’Day Comrade answers that age-old(?) question.. ‘what do you get when a Russian bride, a nerdy scientist and a failed rock star walk into a bar?’ The result, a fun evening of Russian stereotype puns, Dostoyevsky references, random dancing and the stand up talent of three Russian comedians with some pretty impressive street cred. Comedians Kaychu Symon, Gosha Bodryi, Gleb Tugushev and special guest Kirill Sietlov all bring their own unique style of observational humour to Comedy Festival goers, applying a quirky, adorably confused Russian perspective to classic Australianisms, and the legal limit of only two Vladimir Putin based jokes. Aside from a couple of jokes that went a little beyond dark humour, the crowd loved this sweetly hilarious show, which offered a nice balance of performance, and audience interaction. On its debut season, G’day Comrade is not a perfectly polished or sophisticated comedy show, but it’s a must-see for those who love simple, self-deprecating humour – with enough sweet warmth to thaw an icy Russian heart on a bitter winters day. Tickets start from …

MICF Review: Nikki Britton is Romanticide

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We recently head along to check out super face-paced, anti-romance comedy – Nikki Britton is Romanticide as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. From the moment we arrived, we were hit with hilarious, laugh out loud comedy from a lady that says everything we are all thinking as she shares her own true stories about dating, single life, getting older and the mysteries behind life. Every single girl within the room caught themselves out nodding along as her continuous comment “This doesn’t happen to normal people” reminds them of their your own cringe-worthy stories. Being that they are all her own true stories, it does get emotional at times as she describes a heart-break and unbroken hope for true love but always lifts the crowds moods quickly in her hysterical fashion even if that does involve acting out seeing her ex and then falling into a tower of Tim-tams, which quickly melted under her. Nikki tied her performance together with a continuous reference to the two characters that she is in life – a …

MICF Review: Burn the Witch

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Last week we checked out Melbourne International Comedy Festival show Burn the Witch on it’s opening night at the Butterfly Club, a tale set in a small English Village in the 1650’s, a village which keeps experiencing the mysterious disappearance of their children. Witchhunter General Dunlop and his comical, cockney assistant, Jennifer are engaged to get to the bottom of the conundrum and take the audience on a whodunnit style journey to get there. Written by and starring Martin Dunlop and Bec Petraitis, Burn the Witch has a great story to tell, a story that unfolds naturally for the audience with intelligent jokes, ironic humor and energy in abundance. The acting was brilliant, both Martin and Bec really engaged with the audience, and continued to hit the mark with their constant, sometimes dark, humour. For us, the speed of the execution was the only let down, particularly at the 10pm timeslot, the narrative moved from scene to scene at lightening fast pace, which made it a little hard to follow. And did they end up …

MICF Review: Songs in the Key of Awesomesause

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Matt Kilpa’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival show starts with an introduction song which instantly makes us think of the Mighty Boosh, and it’s a great way to describe Songs in the Key of Awesomesauce, sort of inspired by Flight of the Conchords, throw in a touch of the Boosh-style quirky delivery – and mix it with some cool, original material, for 45 minutes of laughs. One man, a guitar, and a bunch of funny songs. Matt’s debut solo show show is pretty fast paced, the songs are nice and short, just long enough to be punchy, but not too long that the audience drifts off, as he very easily moves to the next subject matter. Our personal favourites were the initial workings of his ‘Captain Planet the Musical’ project, where everyone knows that Planeteer Ma’Ti has the lamest power – the power of heart, a topic that any kid that grew up in the 90’s knows about, a parody set to the Dolly Parton classic, Jolene (about a certain red-haired politician), and a song about …

MICF Review: Just Like Buddah

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Last week we were invited along to check out Anthony Jeannot’s 2017 Melbourne International Comedy festival show – Just Like Buddah. In a way there were elements taken from last year’s show – Rage Against the Manchild, signature elements which sort of set Anthony apart from his fellow performers like his entrance.. he doesn’t really have one, this year, just popping up randomly from the back row to introduce himself. There also was plenty of his usual self deprecating, sweet style of humour, but this year the delivery was injected with a lot more confidence, so the show was sharper, more on point. Some of the jokes from last year were reworked into the new show, but the fresh material in Just Like Buddha takes the audience though trips to Sweden (and other types of trips), Anthony’s date with a Doomsday prepper, and the perils of trying to meditate with an over excited, anxious mind. All the kind of interesting, engaging tales that seem far out, but are relatable enough that the audience always has …

MICF Review: No Tips For Keith Cheng?

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Guest reviewer: Shannon Murphy On Wednesday night, we were invited to check out Keith Cheng’s debut Melbourne International Comedy Festival show “No Tips For Keith Cheng?”. This culturally diverse show was MC’d by Melbourne’s own Damian Cosgriff, whose punny goodness and one liners warmed up the crowd, before support act, Singaporean import, Wei got the show rolling. Our introduction to our main act advises that Hong Kong born Keith, has been a regular on the Brisbane comedy scene and his talents have previously seen him as a Finalist (2012) and Runner Up (2013) in the Queensland division of Australian’s biggest open mic comedy competition, Triple J’s Raw Comedy.  Keith’s arrival to the stage was facilitated via a fist bump with the MC, with Cheng confessing it’ll be the only time he gets to successfully punch a white guy. Cheng pushes the envelope on taste with his self proclaimed “Terrible Jokes of The Night”, a title that says it all and garners gasps, chuckles and full out laughter from the audience.  A walk out at this …

MICF Review: The Morning After

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Last week we were invited to check out Evan Hocking’s 2017 Melbourne Comedy Festival Show – The Morning After, basically, his ode to the next day fear one experiences after only the largest of nights…., you know, the whole – ‘what have you done’ scenario. The show started with some short banter with the audience and then we were transported to tropical Port Douglas, which made us first think of sea, great barrier reef. However, a young man nicknamed “Buddha” (Evan Hocking), then walked us through the gradual piecing together of a big night out with friends and the ensuing consequences, with a remembered flashback to his Dad’s words “If you do something wrong, you have to pay the consequences”! Interwoven with short snippets about his family, his education, his friends, society’s fascination with reality TV, his breakup with his long-term girlfriend and the culture of a small town in Port Douglas, Evan took us on a carefully crafted and compelling tale of alcohol-fuelled misadventure. What the hell happened last night? Evan’s gentle, self-deprecating humor …

MICF Review: Self Sabotage

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Last week we checked out up-and-coming comedian, George Dimarelos in his Melbourne Comedy Festival stand up show – Self Sabotage, at the Bull and Bear Tavern. Self Sabotage weaves in and out of various tales and recollections throughout George’s life when, essentially, he stuffed things up for himself.  Though simplistic to describe, the stories are fun, and told in a warm, self-effacing manner through which you can’t help but be drawn in, as the story comes to life in front of you. He sure can paint a picture with his words. George has a super high energy execution, which he maintained for the entire performance, leaving literally no opportunity to tune out, a real sign of an interesting, engaging and entertaining show. Our highlight, was his musical evolution portrayal of picking up girls, from the 1950’s through to a very intense modern day interpretation of chatting up in a nightclub, which is pretty much burned into our memory. My how times have changed. Audience engagement in this show is continuous but not uncomfortable, more like …

MICF Review: Coloured Aliens

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Coloured Aliens is a short insight into the interracial relationship between two main characters, Mai Nguyen a struggling female Vietnamese-Australian playwrite and Kevin, her white, western boyfriend, a security guard who grew up in the rough areas of Melbourne. Each role is ironically played by a western woman (Mai) – Melbourne-based performer Annie Lumsden, and Kevin, by Asia-Australian John Marc Desengano, a quirky twist which works to lighten some of the heavy content of the piece. The chemistry between the two characters was easy, warm and believable. Mai, the main character was narcissistic, self-absorbed, irritating and difficult to like – the kind of character that has a chip on their shoulder, who holds onto the sins of forefathers past and thus cripples themselves with blinkers, unable to embrace the positive around them. This, thankfully was balanced with Kevin’s sweeter, more simplistic nature. Though the intelligent insights, cleverly disguised as witty banter between two lovers were aimed to re-educate western audience members, we felt a little uncomfortable and guilty, for no reason which made the experience …

MICF Review: Desperate & Dateless

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As comedy shows go, Ginger and Tonic’s ‘Desperate and Dateless’ is funny but not overly hilarious…. however it doesn’t matter at all, this fabulous foursome of ladies in red have voices like naughty angels, offer all the fun and entertainment of  Pitch Perfect, but without the hideous cup song and put forward cheeky, relevant content about the modern world of being single, desperate and well…. dateless. Their repertoire was a mix of original lyrics to familiar tunes (our favourite, Tinderella, is one that we guarantee you won’t be able to walk away from the theatre without it stuck in your head), plus parodies and some straight up covers – including an awesome Salt n’ Pepa rap from Laura “Burzy’ Burzacott – fantastic! The 2017 Melbourne International Comedy Festival offering has taken a definite shift this year to be more inclusive and cognisant of the LGBTI community, it’s a refreshing move and one that unifies Melbourne’s festivals as cultured, educated, appealing and open to all, and we were exited to see that this show was on board …