All posts tagged: comedy

At Arm’s Length – MICF Review

Walking into the intimate La Mama Courthouse in Carlton, the first thing that greeted us was clothes… piles and piles of clothes, strewn about the stage floor, across the seats, in the aisles – designed to realistically bring you into the home of Elsa, Ollie and Clare – three very different twenty-something housemates, who, along with the fourth character Tommy, are the stars of this light-hearted, but complex show. Kitted out with the quintessential uni student necessities like an ironing board table, Mi Goreng noodles and alcohol – the audience actually feel as though they a part of the character’s lives as they move through the ‘complexities of #adulting’. A fabulous mix of dialogue, dance and audience interaction, the content of this show struck a chord with everyone in the audience. The topics covered are highly relevant to the daily lives of average modern punter, whether it’s complicated relationships, ideals, goals or just trying to find out who they are. At Arm’s Length is performed by Victoria Bennet, Patrick Durnan Silva, Jacqui Essing and Riley …

Tegan’s City of Love – MICF Review

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 …

Melbourne Fringe Festival

Fringe Festival Review: The Sparrow Men

The fun thing about improv is that you can go to the same show every night for a week, and quite literally never see the same thing twice. Having seen these two in action before at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, I was once again (as always) impressed by their quick wit, fast ability to throw themselves into character and to draw energy and direction from each other with the smallest of cues. As with most performances of this genre, the audience are asked to throw out their best and brightest one-word ideas for the theme of the night’s show. In this instance we were visibly taken from the sumptuous, marble-roofed home of two fussy retirees, one nosily and jealously spying through the venetian-blinded windows on the new wealthy neighbours as they were moving in, over to the neighbours themselves, past two would-be assassins Russian with a penchant for ham (by the gram) – and then right back around to the beginning, each set of characters somehow linked to one-another as part of the story – it all becoming …

Melbourne bargains

Shopping, Entertainment & More on a Budget

Melbourne is well known as the shopping and entertainment capital of Australia, but what’s not so well known is the incredibly diversity of places to shop and be entertained for far less than you would expect to spend.  Here are just a few ideas that will not put too much of a dent in your holiday budget: Half Tix – choose from the daily changing list of live shows playing in town, but don’t pay full price for your seat.  Half Tix sells heavily discounted tickets on the day of the performance.  Melbourne Town Hall, Swanston St, Melbourne City. Mag Nation – got some time to spare, enjoy a lazy afternoon browsing the shelves at Mag Nation, with over 4,000 magazine titles in stock there is surely one or two that will take your interest, and the best thing about it is that you don’t have to buy! 88 Elizabeth St, Melbourne City.