Comedy for a Cause (FringeTIX)
A whole ruck of comedians @ Adelaide Town Hall
12:00pm, Sun 2 Mar 2008
This is the second (or is it third?) comedy benefit gig I’ve snuck into; it’s a great way to get a taste of a whole bunch of acts at once. It’s ever-so-satisfying to be able to cross someone off the Schedule on the basis of a shit showing at a gig like this.
Here’s a whopping great bulleted list of all the wares on show today:
- Asher Treleven was our emcee for the day. He hosted with verve and wit, keeping the audience in line, as well as doing some more of his book readings. On the strength of this bit (and last year’s hosting effort), he stays on the schedule.
- Adam Hills: bloody hell, they bring out the big guns early! Hills is a consummate professional, and has no problems whatsoever getting the crowd laughing. He’s not edgy, he’s not really inventive, he’s just funny.
- Daliso Chaponda hails from South Africa and, once your ears began to account for the accent, he delighted with a polished set, chock full of back-references. Ace.
- You should all know I love Nick Sun, so I may be biased here; he puts in a brave set (suicide jokes before 1pm?) and inadvertently drops the first “c”-word for the afternoon. He got a bit of appreciation from the crowd, and managed to confuse many; job done, then.
- Simon Palomares really surprised with fast, intricate, and acidic tales of family life with his emo kids. Recommended… next year, maybe?
- Stephen Sheehan was incredibly unassuming, quiet, and spun long tales of absurdist size-related humour. Dropped from a Must Schedule to a Maybe; such is his timeslot, however, it probably won’t matter.
- Kehau Jackson is still ace. No mastectomy jokes this year, though.
- Canadian Tom Stade was so laidback he almost needed a bed. Some may label him a misogynist based on the amount of bitching he did about his wife, but – even if that were true (which it isn’t) – he’d still be bloody funny.
- Gordon Southern struck me as trying a little too hard. More tales about flying, pirated DVDs, and I’m looking at my watch trying to calculate an endpoint for this benefit.
- Elbowskin round out the first Act with a brilliant Ode to Adelaide, and a short song that seemed to be generated purely from the phrase “cum on my Facebook.”
- Arj Barker did a decent enough job – his jokes on new fonts especially for e-mail (“Sarcastica”) were fantastic – but the LPM wasn’t really high enough to justify any Schedule re-jigging.
- Mickey D is a local boy, and I don’t like to knock him. He just doesn’t appeal to me.
- Maeve Higgins never changes. She’s still got the same shy-girl persona and gorgeous Irish lilt that makes her so delightful.
- Josh Thomas did a bit of his act; I’d heard it all before, but he was still great – he may have won himself some new friends.
- Claire Hooper also repeated some of her act and, wearing more grown-up clothes and with those innocent eyes further away, her meagre charms were lost on me.
- I hate Justin Hamilton. He’s just shit. His style is disrespectful of the audience and he’s Just Not Funny.
- Mags Moore: gentle, mildly amusing.
- Kent Valentine was another surprise. Sharp, fast, with a nibble of surreality. Next time, oh yes.
- The bumbling Mark Watson was brilliant, as usual, but a lot of the early part of his spot was lost on the majority of the audience who were mumbling to themselves when he was announced as the last act (Fiona O’Loughlin was also listed on the bill). Despite fighting a cold, he should also have won himself some new fans at this gig.
Easy, eh? 19 comedians in four hours. Amanda Blair appeared to pat everyone on the back with the feel-good announcement that about $60,000 had been raised to fight homelessness. At $60 a ticket, that means that 1000 people saw Nick Sun perform today – and that, at least, makes me happy :)