[2013072] Huggers – The Family Friendly Comedy and Cabaret Show
Nik Coppin, Nick the Bubble, Sullivan and Bok, Benny B @ Austral Hotel – The Bunka
3:15pm, Fri 1 Mar 2013
I was really wary of booking anything too early on the day after a Barrio Preview Night… whilst there was not as much damage done to one’s liver (or brain, or relationships) as at the 2013 drink-fest Preview, it was certainly a struggle to drag myself to a mid-afternoon Huggers session – the hangover, it was a-thumpin’. Lemon, lime, and bitters was the best I could manage.
Another show in Nik Coppin’s ensemble stable, Huggers is the family-friendly version of his Shaggers compendium (which is always a suitably crude way to round off a day); this Friday arvo, however, the crowd was sparse, with a quiet collection of four families (a total of eight or nine kids) in attendance… which left my Event Buddy and I feeling a teensy bit out of place.
Nik’s affable manner eventually warms the (initially) frost crowd, and his bribery techniques – throwing sweeties into the crowd to encourage some sugar-loading from the kids – was accompanied by his usual Anglophilic anti-Aussie cricketing jibes. Nick the Bubble (from Nick Brothers Family Show Hooray) was the first guest of the afternoon, and proved a gentle start with some kid-friendly magic… more cups and balls, culminating with a coconut reveal that caused some wide-eyed astonishment from the younger audience members.
It’s fair to say that Sullivan and Bok were absolutely brilliant with the kids, firing them up with a bit of Marco Polo (milking it for all the pantomimic goodness they could get!). Bok played the straight-person like the best teacher ever, and Sullivan’s surreal insanity seemed to mesh with the children’s imagination… the audience was positively bubbling at the end of their performance.
Benny B from Snarp! wrapped up proceedings: “why is the man in a pink leotard?” queried a girl in the audience of her mother, but no answer was forthcoming. But Benny B backed up his ludicrous appearance with some great juggling (especially the cigar box juggling) and some truly terrible puns that split the adults and kids in exactly the right way.
So while this episode of Huggers didn’t quite match the glorious variety of last year’s effort, it certainly provided more than a few grins… and a chance to ease away the hangover.
(72) Huggers: silly good innocent fun :) #ff2013 #ADLfringe
— Pete Muller (@festivalfreakAU) March 1, 2013