Reviews

This year I finally decided to take the plunge and put my hand up to review some of the shows in the 2014 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Spoilt for choice I selected those of interest which I was able to attend.

The prospect of performers improvising their own musical was just too tempting. How could they do it?

In a word, brilliantly!

The audience were asked for a title of the show and came up with “Ice Cream Has No Bones”. We then had an overture, based on the tune “Greensleeves” (the Mr Whippy theme) and the musical began.

I really don’t like improv. I find it a bit of a yawn really as actors and comedians try to prove how funny they are by “instantaneously” coming up with a scene as if contribution from the audience is the first time those words have ever been said.  I do, however, love puppets! The more muppet-y the puppet, the better. So of course I couldn’t say no to the idea of seeing Henson Alternative’s Puppet Up! The idea of improv with puppets was just too interesting to pass up. I’m glad I didn’t pass because Puppet Up!

Despite recent debate about auteur directors overloading classics with their own contemporary readings and staging little of the original, Shakespeare should thank his stars for Damien Ryan.

All’s Well That Ends Well is a rarely staged, so-called Problem Play which I’ve never seen. So first, it’s exciting to go to a Shakespeare and not know the (fantastical) ending! Set in France and in wars in Italy, it’s a fairy tale mix of tragedy and comedy, and one of his most explicit plays about sexual politics. 

Max and Ivan take us to a 10 -year school reunion, where we meet the usual range of characters; the meek, the bully, the nerd, and the weird, just like our own school reunions.

Max and Ivan engaged the audience with their combination of verbal and physical comedy, as they seamlessly switch between subplots, fact, fantasy and characters with just a change in stance and voice and well-timed changes to the lighting. Staging is simple, as most festivals require, with some school lockers and two chairs, and no props.