Antti Hakala – Arctic Comedy [FringeTIX]
Antti Hakala @ Queens Theatre (The Big Room)
9:15pm, Tue 3 Mar 2009
Antti Hakala is disturbingly blonde. His Finnish accent has an almost sing-song quality, his style very laid-back and non-confrontational, his stage manner quiet. And he hates Sweden.
That last bit surprised me a little – I would’ve thought all the Scandinavian countries would be very chummy. Then again, the South Australia / Victoria rivalry is pretty vicious, so maybe my logic is all out-of-whack.
Antti opens with a quick introduction of who he is, where he came from… and how he learnt english. From American TV. Leading to a pretty amusing story behind the Finnish translations afforded to Miami Vice when imported to that country; this lead to the sole Finnish speaker in the audience laughing hysterically at a joke no-one else could understand. Which provided the rest of us with an odd type of experience: sitting in a large room with sixteen other people, listening to one girl weep with laughter, with a small impossibly blonde chap smiling gently in front of us.
Like I said, an odd experience.
If I had to choose one word to describe Antti, it would be “gentle”: he’s not an aggressive performer by any means, and his comedy is pretty secular and inoffensive – until he gets to his protracted “playing Santa Claus is like 25 days of muff diving” joke which, whilst amusing, really felt like the odd-joke-out in his set. After all, he also covered his interpretation of Australian words and phrases, his experiences with the staff at “Colesworths”, and took a little journey into What-If land by considering Scandinavia as the Axis of Evil.
But the finest moment of unexpected hilarity was when Antti stated “Finnish women are easily transferred” – something which raised the ire of the previously gigglish Finnish lass in the crowd. And gave me hope.
Like I said, gentle. A little bit different. Pleasant.