Let’s Get Practical! Live

Let’s Get Practical! Live is more than just your average comedy show - it is an hilarious, cutting edge and satirical poke-in–the-eye probe into the world of TV hosts, live variety and quiz shows, performed by a talented, eclectic, ensemble cast.

The Very Good Looking Initiative presents its second season after winning Melbourne Fringe Best Emerging Performance ensemble and rightly so; this is a real show-stopper of a show and l mean what l say.

A pastiche of television shows, Let’s Get Practical! Live is hosted by the slicked back–mullet, orange tanned Elliot Gee, who looks like a Burt Reynolds seventies reject who speaks strine. He is an overly confident, flawed front man, full of bad jokes and clichés. His tacky razzle-dazzle dancers/technical crew accompany him throughout; they too are consistently dysfunctional.

Elliot Gee’s existential melt down draws the show to a complete halt, leaving the audience in wonderment, like a crazy magic show for adults only.  The frantic tech crews are bewildered, Elliot Gee is losing the plot behind the curtain, so bring on the lewd, kooky and sleazy performers dressed in silver costumes baring cheek butts, dancing to techno.

There is a lot at play with Let’s Get Practical! Live - they are good at downplaying their own performances with a rambunctious fluidity within their own unique  absurdist boundaries.  

The technical sound glitches which weave in and out enhance the mayhem, including crazy feedback and electrical pops along with jarring gritty audio. The blank spinning of the wheel is a nihilistic vacuum of a segment and the talking plant reminds me of Little Shop of Horrors. Hilarious!

The peculiar finale is full of roving disco balls and tender pathos, as the ensemble defectively co ordinate in unison to a moving Cranberries tune that is weirdly uplifting.

Go check this fantastic show out!

Flora Georgiou

Photographer: Sarah Walker.