Reviews

This two-man play returns for an encore season, reprogrammed at much more civilised times after a season of late nights during the Mardi Gras festival.

Cryonics is the low-temperature preservation of humans who cannot be sustained by contemporary medicine, with the hope that healing and resuscitation may be possible in the future (Wikipedia). Xavier Michelides’ performance in Thawed raises some interesting questions about how the process of resuscitation will occur and what will be the affects on the newly thawed.

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!