Attention Deficit... Ooh! A Pony! - Fringe World 2016 (10 February 2016)

I have always admired people who get up on a stage, in the spotlight, in front of a crowd of strangers. There’s a reason I’m a writer and not a performer. The thought is terrifying, my brief appearance on the Heather Ledger stage last month notwithstanding. It’s a pretty gutsy thing to do. Even more so the solo performer who only has a microphone and their wits about them under the harsh lights and even harsher gaze of a paying audience.

Imagine then how much more difficult it would be to do a stand-up routine when you have attention deficit disord—is that a hole in Rose Callaghan’s dress? Why hasn’t she fixed it? Has she noticed it? Surely she’s noticed? Should I say someth—that tonight’s performer was only diagnosed with at the age of 32. Fairly late to confirm a couple of decades of awkward behaviour I would have thought.

But this forms the basis of Callaghan’s routine with tales from her childhood, teenage years and early adulthood on dealing with ADD. Generously, she also provides an extensive and explicit resume of her romantic exploits including advice regarding the online dating scene.

The humour is a little hit and miss and the pint-sized performer who describes herself as Zooey Deschanel’s voluptuous little sister started slowly. She eventually worked her way into a disjointed rhythm of riffs on sex and drugs and the men in her life.

The funniest moments for me were her discovery of a GP’s apparent marketing plan where people dating people with ADD end up discovering they have it too like some form of sexually transmitted disease! Then there’s the time she took her 95 year old Nan to see Delta Goodrem in Cats. Let’s just say Lloyd Webber’s work and Delta’s rendering of it weren’t seen as cultural high-points.

Things end abruptly and as the person I saw the show with remarked, it felt more like a rambling conversation you would have with a friend at a pub. It’s a delivery style that is good-natured if extremely crass at times. The ADD is mostly played for laughs though it might have added another layer if there was a little more serious insight into this condition.

Attention Deficit… Ooh! A Pony! is on at the Noodle Palace until 13 February. 

Impromptunes: The Completely Improvised Musical - Fringe World 2016 (28 January 2016)

Spoiler Alerts ahead!

Wait, what?!

One of the beauties of Impromptunes is that no two shows will ever be alike. It’s the genius of the premise that sees a completely self contained one hour musical performed every night. Not even the cast know what’s going to happen or even what the topic is going to be. That’s left to the audience who call out suggestions for the title of a “never before seen musical’. On the night I attended a gentleman shouted with great assurance... Death of a Vegan!

And so it was that Vegans were killed in the service of art to hilarious and unpredictable effect. 

The show kicked off with our host, the vivacious Louisa Fitzhardinge, explaining the ‘rules’ such as they were. In the cacophony of suggestions that greeted her request for titles the word ‘vegan’ floated above the din like a fountain of kale caught in a gentle breeze. Yes, vegans were in for a rough time which was made even more amusing when Fitzhardinge informed us that one of the cast was indeed, gasp, a vegan! I found out which one after the show but I have chosen to keep that identity a secret to protect their safety in a world of redneck, meat eating savages. Yes, redneck, meat eating savages were lampooned mercilessly as well.

Death of a Vegan was the tale of Bryce (Morgan Phillips) who runs away to join the convent where he is renamed Brother Lychee after reciting the three rules of this Nutrition Revolution to Elder Beetroot (Emmet Nichols). Bryce’s parents Amberly Cull (the mother) and Fitzhardinge (father) are concerned for their missing boy. This concern is magnified into homicidal rage when the Scot, Father Cherry (Greg Lavell), comes a knocking after Brother Lychee disappears in the forest after chopping down the Spirit of the Woods (Hollie James) or some such thing. Lychee and Beetroot find true love while on the run though it’s not sure if that was with each other or bacon, perhaps both. Everyone is reunited in the end with a rousing finale of We All Need A Little Balance.

Sure, the plot is bat shit crazy as you’d expect from something completely improvised. The joy is in the antics of how they get there and it’s nothing less than impressive. Before I continue, there is a significant seventh member of the troupe and that is accompanist Robert Woods on keyboards. He supplies mood, pace and musical cues for the cast to bounce off and vice versa.

Everything is improvised from the plot to lyrics, music, and the characters chosen. The reason this works is twofold: all seven clearly were well versed in the musical theatre form. They intuitively know when to bring in a duet (I’d Go Anywhere With You), or to reprise a song; when to harmonise or change things up with an upbeat number such as Lickety Splits on the night; to close with a crowd pleasing ‘message song’ or to overlap two songs to accentuate opposing themes.

Secondly, there is a real camaraderie and sense of trust here. Phillips was gleefully put through the wringer by especially Nichols which was mined for maximum laughs. Watching them all operate there were plenty of quick nods to identify pairings; focussed eye contact to work out where a beat or scene was going; and ultimately a sense of play. The result feels purely organic, pun intended.

I’m sure each member has a show where they are the focal point but for me Nichols and Cull were the standouts on the night but everyone was fabulous in a very funny production that was a delight to watch. The line of the night - Fitzhardinge's explanation that they called their son Bryce because beef is good with rice. Obviously! 

Highly recommended but be quick as the show, on at the Noodle Palace, finishes on 30 January! 

Darren the Explorer - Fringe World 2016 (23 January 2016)

This show is to Play School what Avenue Q is to Sesame Street. That is to say it’s a modified children’s concept where political correctness was not only barred from entering the venue but was told to fuck off downstairs and wait in the car for an hour. It is lewd, crude, breathtakingly non-PC, and a hilarious pisstake of early morning children’s shows.

The story is simple – Darren (Luke Bolland) wants nothing more on his fourth birthday than for his parents to get back together and for his father to say he’s proud of him. To do this all he has to do is go on an adventure to find the magic lamp of Northbridge and make a wish. In this quest he is assisted by a couple of sidekicks – Shoes the talking monkey (Jez Watts) and Pam the Map (Dylan Dorotich). Shoes hates Pam with a passion so their non-stop bickering is in direct counterpoint to the cheesy sort of camaraderie you would usually find in a “kids show”.

Obstacles are put in their way mainly in the form of Stealy the Dingo (Sarah J Christiner) who covets the lamp (and pretty much anything else he can get his puppet hands on) and a set of challenges. These involve visiting a strip club, surviving a knife fight in Northbridge and finding a homeless man (Glenn Grimwood).    

The humour is not for the faint hearted with some very blue jokes on a range of contemporary subjects. Bill Cosby and Taylor Swift are among the more notable targets. There are plenty of sight gags – one involving a ping pong ball that was laugh out loud tasteless – and in the show I saw a ‘prop malfunction’ that had Watts struggling to stay in character at the absurdity of it all. There is also pungent commentary on the overly bogan aspects of Australian culture and a riff on the city of Adelaide that is relentless. There are questionable jabs at abortion as Shoes deals with the unexpected pregnancy of Shirts the stripper; while in the best Avenue Q tradition racism is given a subverted treatment.

The show swings for the fences and is unapologetic in its brand of humour which is offensively funny. But that is the beauty of the premise – couching such barbs in the cloak of a childhood format makes the content so incongruous that you can’t help but laugh while also potentially questioning why you are doing so. It’s one of those gloriously squirm inducing experiences as an audience member.

Bolland plays Darren with straight forward earnestness that provides the foundation for all the craziness that swirls around him. He’s at his best when asking the audience what they think of certain situations or to answer questions in mock educational style. The dead pan style works a treat. By comparison, Watts gets to riff with an energy and malicious glee that is infectious. Dorotich is the good natured target of derision that acts as a counterweight to Watt’s malevolence.

Christiner plays a less than useful barman (to their quest) with some truly crude jokes but it’s her work as Stealy that reverberates in the bigger scheme of the story. She also has a bizarre knife fight with Grimwood who provides the glimpse of a moral compass before being seduced by thoughts of an irresistibly exotic locale.  

Director Levon Polinelli keeps this all moving along briskly while incorporating some backing video animation and the inclusion of music by Courtney Murphy. The songs are again a subversion of typical children’s sing-a-long fare with satire (We’re Singing a Song that Rhymes) and vitriol (You’re the Worst).

If you like your comedy barbed, very dark, and flirting with being truly offensive then this show is going to be right up your alley. Don’t be surprised though if that alley is a vomit filled laneway in Northbridge full of disreputable characters who will steal everything you own to pay for a trip to Adelaide.

Written by Luke Bolland, Directed by Levon Polinelli, with Music by Courtney Murphy, Darren the Explorer is on at the Noodle Palace until 6 February.

Jeff Hewitt: Rad Dad Redemption - Fringe World 2016 (23 January 2016)

It’s a little known fact that Joseph Campbell’s seminal work The Hero with a Thousand Faces is the pre-eminent manual for how to succeed at stand-up comedy. It pretty much lays out the road map for those brave enough to accept the call, survive the ordeal, and seize the sword of fame and comedic glory. Of course, a Hollywood arsehole called George Lucas completely misappropriated this potent tome to create some nonsense about space knights and indestructible space stations that were destroyed with Sisyphean regularity.

Okay, it’s entirely possible that the above statement is, ahem, not strictly speaking correct. But commentating as a screenwriter who has sat through many a workshop (and indeed read Christopher Vogler’s The Hero’s Journey based on Campbell’s work), the fact that Jeff Hewitt overtly uses this storytelling model is as surprising as it is amusing.

And when I mean overt I mean as in a presentation slide on screen stepping us through a truncated 9 step model! It gives structure to what turns out to be a very funny and engaging tale of personal redemption. Which just happens to fit Campbell’s model perfectly as Hewitt is indeed the hero of his own story.

But to earn redemption one first has to plummet to the depths and this is what makes Rad Dad Redemption really interesting. Hewitt isn’t afraid to tell his story warts and all even daring us not to like him. The show opens with a video montage of him circa 2011 when he was an irresponsible party animal and deeply dissatisfied lawyer. Once onstage he quickly apprises us of the reasons for his behaviour and angst mapped to Campbell’s steps. Drugs, infidelity, soulless boss, remorseless banks, and the tragic end to a neighbour are just some of the causes.

Hewitt’s delivery is brutal, often times crass but ultimately funny because there is a truthfulness here that is compelling. And despite his attempts to play the villain he does come across as very likeable in the intimate venue. This is aided by a casual interaction with the audience that is spontaneous and warm even when mock abuse is blurted out with glee.

Things change for Hewitt when he meets his ‘Goddess’ who will become the mother of his child which drives the redemption arc in the latter half of the show. Fatherhood certainly has changed Hewitt and his joy at this unexpected outcome is palpable. The show ends with a video montage circa 2015 that shows how far he has come from his anus horribilis. The final moments demonstrate to us all that you have to learn to crawl before you can walk and it is a touching endpoint to an authentic and funny tale.   

And not even one Death Star was blown up along the way!

Jeff Hewitt: Rad Dad Redemption, directed by Levon Polinelli, is on at the Noodle Palace in the Central Institute of Technology in Northbridge until 30 January.