[2015076] Best of Adelaide Fringe: Late Show

[2015076] Best of Adelaide Fringe: Late Show

Rik Carranza [emcee] (with Jack Campbell, Matt Grey, Evan Desmarais, & Nik Coppin) @ Belgian Beer Cafe ‘Oostende’

10:15pm, Tue 24 Feb 2015

After my previous show ran long, I wound up scooting upstairs at the Belgian Beer Cafe just after the emcee for the evening, Rik Carranza, had taken to the stage to try and fire up the assembled crowd. This proved to be a little difficult, not necessarily because of his initial material (mostly based on his Asian heritage), but more due to the layout of the venue: lounge seating wrapped around the sides of the stage, which meant that people who opted for the super-comfy option (rather than the stock seating directly in front of the stage) were very much physically laid back (not a good way to seem attentive), and on the fringes of the performer’s vision. Despite this, Carranza garnered some laughs throughout the evening, though his hosting duties were more perfunctory than exemplary.

First of the main acts was Jack Campbell (2014’s English Comedian of the Year). His spot was pretty good fun, but he looked physically brittle onstage… which was easily explained once he revealed the ripper sunburn that he’d acquired at the beach. Oh, you foolish Englishmen, will you never learn? Our sun is not like your sun.

(…says the guy who once got sunburnt in Edinburgh, Scotland.)

Mute Matt (Matt Grey) was up next, performing a mime set that owed a lot to The Boy With Tape On His Face. It was a really polished spot, let down only by the reluctance of the audience… once again, those lounges that framed the stage must have been super comfy, because no-one wanted to budge from them.

After a bit of a break, Canadian Evan Desmarais tried to gee people up with some political material – which I loved, but the laid-back crowd were a little more circumspect. Any goodwill they gave him, however, flew out the window when he attempted to make terrorism less terror-y… the potential political incorrectness of the material completely killed the mood, though – once again – I thought it was pretty reasonable comedy. It’d be interesting to see Desmarais with a like-minded and interested crowd, rather than a bunch of people lounging back in their seats and checking Facebook.

Finally, Nik Coppin brought his usual easygoing charm to proceedings, and won the crowd back with his lively banter and engagement, this time focussing on his time-tested and true stories about racism.

In a rapidly-expanding field of comedy line-up shows, Best of Adelaide Fringe: Late Show doesn’t really do much to differentiate itself… apart from using an awkward (for the performers) room. Was this really, as the title would claim, the “Best of Adelaide Fringe”? Well, no… but there were some moments worth a solid chortle, and Evan Desmarais and Jack Campbell proved to be names to look out for in the future.

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