Category: 2015 – Adelaide Fringe Festival

[2015097] Kirsty Mac – Feminazi

[2015097] Kirsty Mac – Feminazi

Kirsty Mac @ Gluttony – Pigtails

9:50pm, Sun 1 Mar 2015

So I’m one of those guys who likes to think of himself as a feminist… and I’m also one of those guys that feels very nervous doing so, simply because I know I can’t experience the female perspective. So I’m always interested when someone who does have a “purer” feminist perspective comes along with something to say.

Kirsty Mac is one of those people.

Whilst she kicks off proceedings proclaiming that she’s been (perhaps inappropriately) called a “feminazi” so often that she’s decided to own the term, she soon migrates to the type of material that I’d expect from a feminist comic: calling out misogyny, gender inequality, and men’s inability to purchase tampons. But whilst a lot of her vitriol is aimed at men, women – especially the patronising mothers who decry her feminism as outlandish – cop a serve, too.

Much is made of dating pressures that are put on her due to her age (mid-thirties), with the assumption that she’s seeking a mate for procreation (which, she assures us through song, she most certainly is not). There’s also a brief wander into politics (with vicious insight into the rise and fall of Julia Gillard), and a curious (but patchy) Q&A session with the audience about feminism.

I really enjoyed Feminazi: I like Kirsty Mac’s style, and the fact that she can casually drop c-bombs with extreme precision. The fact that her material is genuinely funny – as well as being gender political – is icing on the cake.

[2015096] Icarus Falling

[2015096] Icarus Falling

Scott Wings @ Tuxedo Cat – Cusack Theatre

8:30pm, Sun 1 Mar 2015

Scott Wings takes to the stage, and within seconds I know I’m going to adore Icarus Falling: he has invoked the myth of Icarus, he’s used repetition in his poetry with words that conjure white clouds of wonderment in my mind, and he’s dropped an f-bomb in the perfect spot.

And then he, as Icarus, gets the audience to watch him fall.

He demands of the crowd: “Close eyes. Open! Close. Open!” as he repeatedly jumps, and the result is that everyone generates a little flicker animation of Wings falling through the air.

It’s such a simple device that I’m amazed that I haven’t seen it before… but I was left speechless, stunned by it. Those moments of Wings suspended in the air are etched into my mind now.

But Icarus falls, and we soon move into the guts of the play: the relationship between Scott and his abusive father, through the lens of Icarus and Daedalus. And whilst Daedalus tried to warn Icarus of the dangers of his hubris, Scott’s father seems… well, rather less complimentary. Less heroic. Repeated lines like “You’re father’s an arsehole” give it away.

The poems that form the text of Icarus Falling shift rhythms and styles, get broken and interrupted by each other, as it becomes clear that Icarus – Scott – is also battling depression. Lucid thoughts and tales are cut off by suicidal thoughts, and anti-suicidal thoughts… and then She enters the play, and Wings plays with Her as Icarus plays with the sky, and his words around Her are just so beautiful… How to Bottle Lightning is an absolutely gorgeous poem.

And then there’s more depression, Daedalus harshly lectures Icarus, and a strange fixation on Jon Bon Jovi’s Blaze of Glory. Bruce Willis and Michael Bay. And a tremendous Ocarina of Time reference which made my head sing, even if he blatantly explains it. And the denouement suggests that maybe the legend of Icarus is not actually about pride, or hubris, or obeying the word of your parents… maybe it’s about depression. Maybe it’s about manic depression.

It should be abundantly clear that I abso-fucking-lutely loved this show. Icarus Falling is one of those utterly amazing Fringe pieces that you just want to get everyone you know to go and see. Smart, funny, anarchic, sad, and poignant, it’s a mesmerisingly deep piece of work that just keeps giving the more you read it… and on my copy of the script, accompanied by little ninja stars and a stylised feather, Wings inscribed this:

Pete,
Fringe Master Sifu, you are not grasshopper, you are tarantula. Your skills are beyond mere mortals. You are ninja. Your nightingale floors are silent. You are stealthy and shadows. You should open an academy.

And all that – plus the script within – makes me incredibly happy.

[2015094] Who’s Your Daddy? the funny side of parenting

[2015094] Who’s Your Daddy? the funny side of parenting

Terry North, Kate Burr, Fabien Clark @ Austral Hotel – Red Room

4:00pm, Sun 1 Mar 2015

Now… I’m not a parent, but I’m seeing someone who is – and I like to be somewhat prepared for any interactions with children that may occur. And what better way to prepare myself than through the medium of standup comedy?

So, after a trip to the airport to see my Significant Other off after an amazingly fun whirlwind visit, I scooted back into the city for this short-but-sweet ensemble lineup. A bit of a shame it was a light audience – maybe just touching double-figures, and certainly containing couples who had fobbed their children off for the afternoon.

Terry North kicks off proceedings, and was the nominal emcee for the show – though that seems like a bit of an overblown title when there’s only two other comedians on the bill. His style of comedy is very gentle, but he provides a couple of laughs before introducing Kate Burr.

Now – I really like Kate Burr, having seen her once at a Fringe gig, and a couple of times around town since – but I really don’t understand why I don’t see her more often. She’s a natural onstage, with a wonderfully affable style, and her rapid-fire kid-running rant at the end of her spot was a touch of genius.

Fabien Clark’s style is almost the complete opposite to Burr’s – he’s very laid-back and chilled, and – having seen him do a lot of spots around town après-Fringe, some of his material was familiar. But his frank evaluation of his three children (the eldest is soft and smart, the middle one is tough and dumb, and the youngest is raised by the other two) is solid, and yields many laughs.

Like I said, this was a short show… but pleasant enough. And it reminded me that I should seek Kate Burr out more often… her uniquely country-girl-ish take on married life in the city is an absolute treat.

[2015093] dotMaze: Get Lost!

[2015093] dotMaze: Get Lost!

dotComedy @ Royal Croquet Club

12:00pm, Sun 1 Mar 2015

As the Fringe approached, I could see the construction of a large hedge-maze in Victoria Square; it didn’t look massive – maybe a square of twenty metre sides – but it certainly took a chunk out of the northern side of the Square. And when I saw dotMaze in the Fringe Guide – then discovered that tickets were selling fast – I managed to squeeze in one final Fringe event for my Significant Other… a family adventure, of which she would be more familiar than I.

We turned up about ten minutes before our allotted starting time to find a queue wrapped around the side of the maze in the baking sun. Chatting with the people around us, we discovered there was no consistency in their ticket times: some had tickets for the session before ours, others for the session after. The line only moved occasionally, and we eventually found out why: the dotMaze had a very limited capacity, so people could only be admitted once existing wanderers had escaped.

After some solid Vitamin D time, we gained entry to the maze to find that we were sharing the space with a whole bunch of people who appeared to be wandering aimlessly… that’d explain why the line was moving slowly, then. But there was also a wealth of genteel storybook characters – I spotted old friend Seb in old English explorer khakis – and there were also a handful of strange creatures wandering around, made from the same synthetic grass as the maze itself: the people inside the teacup and (functioning!) teapot must have been super uncomfortable.

The storybook characters focused most of their dialogue on the children, providing clues about where to go… and their suggested route took people back and forth to landmarks within the maze (and explained, again, why the queue outside moved so slowly). There was something super-whimsical about their presence and presentation, but they conjured a sense of mystery – and some of the more obscure parts of the maze contained some darker secrets, too (the cage was a bit… grim).

The exit to the maze was surprisingly obscure, I thought, and required an engagement with the players in the maze that doesn’t come naturally to Australian audiences (in my opinion, anyway); but dotMaze was a reasonably interesting, if uncomfortably hot and muggy, chance to explore and interact with all manner of English twee-ness. I’m certainly thankful – for myself and the performers – that it wasn’t a hotter day.

[2015092] Scotch and Soda

[2015092] Scotch and Soda

Company 2 & The Crusty Suitcase Band @ Garden of Unearthly Delights – Aurora Spiegeltent

10:15pm, Sat 28 Feb 2015

So… earlier in the week there’d been this little photoshoot, during which I met a lot of the (totes lovely) team behind Scotch and Soda, including the fantastic Chelsea McGuffin and Mozes (who I totally fawned over because Acrobat was one of the pivotal performances of my Fringe-going life), and after expressing surprise at the number of shows that I’d seen, they’d asked whether I was actually going to see Scotch and Soda. “Do you still have tickets for Saturday night?” I had asked, and – hearing an affirmative – I decided that this would be the Big Fringe show for my Significant Other. Chelsea smiled sweetly, and said “Great! We’ll reserve a couple of seats up front for you!”

So, after arriving maybe twenty minutes before the nominal start time of the show to find a stationary queue that zig-zagged around the front of the Aurora, I thought I’d check with the front-of-house team (as Chelsea had suggested) regarding our seats. “Nope!” said the main guy, “I don’t know anything about that. Go to the back of the line; they’re all good seats.” That made me chuckle to myself as I walked down the queue – still, that’s part of the Fringe experience too.

Even so, we wound up with aisle seats about three rows from the front on the far left of house… and I was pretty chuffed with that. But as we craned our necks, watching the Scotch and Soda team warm up the audience as others filled the room, Chelsea bounced past and caught my eye – “Oh – hi! We saved you seats over here!” She guided us over the stage – for a split second we were onstage in a Spiegeltent! – and took us to two seats, front row right-centre… and I was super chuffed.

From the moment the Ben Walsh-led Crusty Suitcase Band start playing, something is always happening in Scotch and Soda. The thin narrative – focused around the chase of The Bush Stranger (Mozes), of that much I’m sure – is barely necessary, because the driving score provided by the Crustys propels the show along its course of acrobatics and balancing acts and tumbling.

Some tricks – McGuffin’s bottle walking and Mozes’ roller skating, for example – are reprised from earlier works (Company 2’s Cantina and Acrobat, respectively). But there’s a freshness to the presentation here, with the visual aesthetic having an earthiness to it that made me feel like it’s an everyman performance… but not everyone can balance three-high on a rickety table. Or ride a bike around the tight stage at speed whilst performing stunts. Or swing from the trapeze, flashing genitals amidst other tricks.

For a change in pace, the company erect a tent on stage for a little shadowplay, there’s a tensely acrobatic card game, and a curiously twee sequence featuring some budgies… but for the most part, it’s non-stop action with springboards and more balancing and dancing… all powered by the jazzy blues of the Band.

Maybe it was because of the privilege and position that I had in the Spiegeltent, but I absolutely loved Scotch and Soda. It felt more holistic, more complete, than Cantina (though, admittedly, that was much earlier in that project’s gestation), and the grittiness of the visual production speaks to me more than the glitter and sheen of something like La Clique. For me, this was the best big-production Fringe show I’d seen in years.

[2015091] Dr. Professor Neal Portenza’s Catchy Show Title

[2015091] Dr. Professor Neal Portenza’s Catchy Show Title

Dr. Professor Neal Portenza @ Tuxedo Cat – Mayall Room

8:30pm, Sat 28 Feb 2015

It’s best to say that I was perplexed during my prior Portenza encounter, but – on the occasions that I’d seen him (and Josh Ladgrove, his “normal” personae) at various TuxCat events) – I’d since developed a real affection for the character… and I figured that his bizarre clowning and audience interaction would be another good bit of Fringe exposure for my Significant Other.

Of course, I’d failed to take into account that this was Clipsal Weekend… and, as such, the general rabble of people in the city this Saturday night was heavily skewed in the “pissed bogan” demographic, and some even managed to find TuxCat (though, thankfully, they had a “no race shirts” policy in place). And four fucking morons wound up in the audience for this performance.

But that wasn’t evident at first. We’d entered the Mayall Room to be greeted by Maria, Neal’s grandmother, whose high-pitched voice and heavy accent left many wondering whether she was actually speaking english as she queried the audience. Many quizzical looks were passed around; just by the door, a group of men started talking amongst themselves: “Is this guy alright? I think he’s fucking mental.”

Neal whips off the headscarf that signifies Maria, and engages in a bit of Neal-ish banter with the audience: he’s silly, he’s abrupt, and he’s pointed. The chatter by the door continues; I look around and see four heavy-set men, all double-fisting their drinks, in conversation.

Josh drops out of character and asks if everything’s OK; the men try to come up with a witty riposte, but their words are heavy and slurred. Josh points out that this is a weird comedy show, and maybe that’s not going to be their sort of thing? They’re sullen in response. One final check, and Neal is back.

But the men keep talking, and it’s obvious that the murmurs are annoying the audience – and Josh. He offers them their money back if they want to leave; three of the men sink back into their seat, but one – who proudly announces himself as Osama – starts backchatting.

And things go south very quickly.

It becomes a sad battle of the sodden witless versus the match-fit razor-sharp wit; Osama is hopelessly outclassed, but too drunk to realise the battle he’s losing, so it’s not long before there’s threats of violence. Nathan the tech pipes up to try and diffuse the situation. Claims and counter-claims, chest-beating machismo, and an awful tension builds in the room before a tenuous cease-fire is reluctantly agreed to.

There was more of the show – Stavros turns up and goads Osama and Friends, there’s a rubber chicken singalong, and – for the finale – selected members of the audience were invited to thwack plungers on Neal’s chest before the audience played a game of glow-stick coits.

But, to be honest, the air never cleared from the altercation in the middle of the show; the laughs were there, but they were tempered, measured.

Ladgrove apologised profusely during the show, and even offered everyone (apart from Osama and his three meathead buddies) free tickets to see Portenza again. I laughed it off – as uncomfortable as the show was because of their presence, it was still part of the Fringe experience for me – by my Signifiant Other was furious at their mangling of the show. “You should take him up on seeing it again,” she said to me; I’d already resolved to do just that.

8:30pm, Sat 14 Mar 2015

Josh caught me at the door as I flashed my ticket – “You didn’t have to pay again,” he said, but I just laughed him off. That’s not how my Fringe-going works: if you’re putting on a show and asking for money, you’ll get money.

The audience this evening was almost the polar opposite of the first show: there were (at least) four kids in the audience, which took Neal by surprise (Josh dropped character to check if their parents were okay with the likely profanity and adult themes). Sure, the fourteen year old girl in the front row was brave, as was the seventeen year old boy (who wound up helping Neal and family onstage a bit), but the nine and twelve year old that sat with their parents were in for a weird, abstract ride.

Much of the material from that first show was still here – Stavros the doof-doof loving Greek and Maria still showed up, but so did Vanessa, the ultra-patriotic young girl singing for her country. We got to singalong again with the rubber chickens, play glow-stick coits (after I nearly broke Josh’s ribs trying to attach the first plunger), and there was some leaf-blower weirdness. Nathan the tech came in for some stick, and I even got explicitly called out as the Festival Freak, which was nice.

It’s not really amazing that the show was much more enjoyable without a bunch of drunk fuckwits trampling over the enjoyment of others; but it was pretty amazing just how much more fun it was. With an audience that spanned many decades, everyone laughed themselves silly at this weird, abstract, physical performance… and I was convinced that Dr. Professor Neal Portenza is a clown of the very highest order.

[2015090] Felicity Ward – The Iceberg

[2015090] Felicity Ward – The Iceberg

Felicity Ward @ Garden of Unearthly Delights – Studio 7

7:15pm, Sat 28 Feb 2015

I’d seen Felicity Ward perform solo shows at the Fringe three times now, and have loved (and appreciated) the work she’s been doing in mental health awareness over the past few years. Given the fortuitous overlap between their visits to Adelaide, I thought she’d be totally appropriate for my Significant Other’s introduction to big-ticket Fringe standup comedy.

But I’d forgotten how different Ward’s shows can be.

Studio 7 was packed to the rafters, and Ward was greeted with raucous applause and hooting; Ward quickly explains that The Iceberg is so named because she’d been mulling over ideas of perception, and the analogy of the iceberg being mostly underwater seemed too good to miss. And so she delves into meaty topics like misogyny, the leering at and putting down of women, racism, and politics with her usual cutting language.

Since Ward had moved to London, she surmised, she’d been afforded the opportunity to look at life in England and – more importantly – Australian culture a little more objectively, and she draws a lot of laughs from pointed observations (our cricket-watching is subject to some fun barbs). But Ward weaves a lot of compassion into the show: her mental health advocacy continues here, and her encouragement to get the audience to think about the rest of the iceberg – not just the bit that we can see and complain about – gives a lot of depth to the content.

Despite (or maybe because of) persistent niggles with the sound desk, The Iceberg proved to be an incredibly well-constructed piece of standup. Not only was the content substantive, positive, and bloody funny, but Ward’s delivery is polished to a tee, and the ending has not one, but two big reveals… but let’s not veer into spoiler territory. Needless to say, that’s the best closing five minutes to a comedy show I’ve seen in years.

[2015089] Only You Can Save Us

[2015089] Only You Can Save Us

Sekrit Projekt @ Tuxedo Cat – Cusack Theatre

6:00pm, Sat 28 Feb 2015

The Significant Other and I had just been hobnobbing with the Festival arts community – drinking bubbles, eating pork belly, chatting with Bill Viola (how good were his videos?) – and arrived at TuxCat in good cheer. With a few minutes up our sleeve before the show, we grabbed some beers – big mistake.

Why’s that a big mistake? Because in the warmth and humidity of the Cusack Theatre, even sitting in the front row, additional carb loading made me sleepy. Again.

But I don’t think snooziness affected my perception of Only You Can Save Us as much as it did Azimut… because Sekrit Project’s show appeared to have one trick that it milked ad infinitum.

Just a glance at the brief programme gave a good idea of what to expect: with characters listed as Captain Hero, John Villaine, Doc Science, The Girl, and Sarge, you’d expect that it was going to be chock-full of stereotypes.

And so it was: this simple tale of good-versus-evil felt like someone had taken every populist sci-fi universe, chucked it in a blender, and created a tongue-in-cheek lo-fi homage to classic B-grade sci-fi movies. Nothing is taken seriously – hey, there’s even a (well done!) dance break in the middle of the show – and everything is completely overplayed: Captain Hero’s heroic poses are ludicrously done, and John Villaine’s evil monologues put Bond villains to shame. The odd action scene (torch lightsabres! balloon enemies!) underline the lo-fi aesthetic.

But despite all the goofy content and exuberant performances, I found myself drifting off more than once. I blame the carbs, I really do. But what I saw was most certainly enthusiastic Fringe theatre, and there was certainly some fun to be had prodding populist sci-fi tropes.

[2015088] Pants Down Circus ROCK!

[2015088] Pants Down Circus ROCK!

Pants Down Circus @ Garden of Unearthly Delights – The Factory

3:30pm, Sat 28 Feb 2015

Knowing that my Significant Other was in town for a limited time – and having declared that she wanted to experience a bit of my Festivalian activities – I was left in a bit of a quandary: do I take her to the shows that I know (or suspect) are going to be sure-fire hits? Or do we experience the unknown together? For circusy things, I thought it best to stick with the former; I naturally wanted her to see the always-amazing A Simple Space, but other events conspired against us. Second choice – and helpfully supported by a matinée – was Pants Down Circus’ ROCK!.

The show felt almost exactly the same as last year’s rendition, but that’s taking nothing away from the spectacle – and humour – in the show: the unlikely juggling and leaf-blower tricks, the callback tennis-racquet guitar antics to the opening notes of Walk This Way, the astonishing hoop and balancing acts, and the non-stop positivity emanating from the Pants Down Circus crew remained intact.

And all that makes ROCK! a sure-fire winner… both for a punter who has seen the show before (like me), and for someone experiencing the show for the first time (my delightful Significant Other).

[2015087] Boris & Sergey Origins

[2015087] Boris & Sergey Origins

Flabbergast Theatre @ Gluttony – La Petite Grande

2:15pm, Sat 28 Feb 2015

I loved my first Boris & Sergey experience, and was keen to show their anarchic puppetty madness to my Significant Other… but I was super-keen to see how their antics could be translated into a show suitable for children… especially given some of their adults-only hijinks (the extended audience face-fucking scene would be particularly inappropriate in a kids’ show, methinks).

And, to be quite frank: the translation from filthy-mouthed late-night cabaret into the realm of children has been done incredibly well.

The awesome chase scene remains largely intact, and stupidly good fun; Boris’ Withering Heights interpretation is still there. And, given that a large amount – if not all – of the material was also present in their Vaudevillian Adventure, I was genuinely surprised how easily it was cleaned up to become kid-friendly… and still remain incredibly funny. So much of the humour is found in the expressive movements of the leathery puppets; there’s a lot more physicality to their comedy than I’d previously given them credit for. That’s not to say that Boris & Sergey’s banter was squeaky-clean – there were still a few nods to the adults in the audience that led to confused looks on children’s faces.

And, best of all, the puppeteers that control Boris & Sergey – who unashamedly operate their creations in plain sight – genuinely look like they’re having fun together… sure, maybe a few of them looked a little worse for wear, but they appeared to crack each other up on occasions (possibly because of the kid-ification of some of their regular dialogue).

In short, Boris & Sergey Origins proved to be an uncompromised Boris & Sergey experience: an excellent, strange, imaginative, and funny puppet show for all ages. However, the overlap of material between their two shows means that you could get away with only seeing one of them.

[2015086] Tomás Ford: Electric Cabaret

[2015086] Tomás Ford: Electric Cabaret

Tomás Ford, Captain Of Industry @ Tuxedo Cat – Mayall Room

11:00pm, Fri 27 Feb 2015

So – we’re already a little drunk, and I’ve deliberately elected to show my Significant Other the weird stylings of Tomás Ford precisely because he’s the polar opposite of super-polished, high-budget Festival shows… and it’s also her first foray into Fringe, and the most wonderful of Fringe venues: the Tuxedo Cat.

Seriously, I couldn’t have planned this any better.

With a healthy crowd of around two dozen, Tomás Ford adopts the not-too-far-from-the-truth personae of a guy who thinks he’s putting on a massive cabaret event, only to have everything possible go wrong: the crowd doesn’t turn up, those who do turn up turn against the songs, the staging fails, his computers melt down, and he heads towards a nervous breakdown.

And the narrative is – mostly – delivered in song. Ford’s trademark pre-recorded electro goodness is crooned and growled over, and – as is his wont – he roams the audience, singing and screaming in the audience’s faces… there’s a tangible sense of danger when he’s prowling off the stage. Most of his songs are originals – Love Cancer is demonstrative of his style – but there’s a few appropriate covers thrown in, too.

With the exception of the narrative, it’s a very similar performance to Tomás Ford’s show in 2013; he still goads everyone into getting up and dancing, and builds the show into a wonderfully euphoric, feel-good conclusion. It’s Tomás Ford doing what Tomás Ford does best… and I love it.

[2015084] Set List

[2015084] Set List

A whole mess of comedians @ Rhino Room – Upstairs

I was having a brief “Happy Fringe!” chat with SA Comedy superhero Craig Egan prior to my first show of the year, and he’d asked me what I was looking forward to; when I’d finished my list, he looked at me and – in a manner that indicated that he was not fucking around – said “Mate – Set List. It’s insane.”

He explained the premise to me: comics get onstage with no planned material. TV screens display bizarre topics – or just groups of words – to the audience and the comic at the same time. The comic tries to make jokes based on the topics; when they fail, another topic is thrown onscreen. Repeat. It’s an incredibly risky proposition, I reckon, but it would surely sort the truly funny comedians from the average… right?

10:45pm, Thu 26 Feb 2015

My first Set List experience featured Mickey D as host, and he was his usual polished self, geeing the audience up and giving the comics due admiration for their efforts. And the night started strong with Gordon Southern ripping through a heap of topics, rarely failing to garner laughs. The middle trio of comics were a bit patchier, however: Tom Ballard, Dave Campbell, and Evan Desmarais all managed some good material, but struggled with some of the topics thrown up onscreen.

The final comic for the evening, Greg Fleet, absolutely smashed it, though: his current show is essentially improv, and maybe that practise has put him in good stead with Set List.

I suppose the thing that struck me most about the topics that were flung at the comics was the fact that most of them bordered on nonsense; just globs of words, really. But I suppose that prevents comics with a massive backlog of material from dropping into their standard routines… still, this Set List performance was interesting enough to warrant a further look…

10:45pm, Wed 4 Mar 2015

I was thankful for a late start, as my previous show ran long and I had a panicky run through a busy East End to make it to the Rhino Room… because there was no way that I was missing this Set List, based on the list of comics on the Rhino chalkboard. Sam Simmons? Oh hell yes, I wanted to see what that man could do… and Craig Egan had really bigged up Wil Anderson. I had expressed my “lack of connection” to Wil’s comedy, but Egan had immediately dismissed me: Anderson’s incredible at Set List, Egan had insisted.

Again, Mickey D hosted with aplomb, and again Gordon Southern provided a great start. James McCann provided some solid laughs as well, but I distinctly remember looking at the topics on the screen and wondering whether they were even more abstract than before…

Lawrence Mooney made the concept of Set List look easy, stretching the flimsiest of phrases into abstract comedy. Scary abstract comedy. Violent, scary, abstract comedy… the best kind. And when Sam Simmons took the mike… well, it was exactly as bizarre as I had hoped. I’m pretty sure that the “topics” were little more than random consonants separated by vowels to create things that looked like words at this point, but Simmons’ trademark faux rage worked a treat.

Wil Anderson, though, was utterly disappointing… I tried and tried to appreciate what he brought to the stage that night, but… nope. It just didn’t work for me, and – judging by the drop-off in laughs from the rest of the audience – I don’t think it worked for them, either. Maybe Anderson just had a bad night.

Still, I walked out of that second Set List happy that I’d experienced it… but not really interested in seeing any more. It feels like competitive performance practice for comics… and whilst that can be amusing to see – and impressive to watch a great comic summon laughs from nowhere – I think I’d much rather see a meticulously crafted set.

[2015083] The Awkward Years

[2015083] The Awkward Years

isthisyours? @ Royal Croquet Club – The Rastelli

9:45pm, Thu 26 Feb 2015

I love flicking through the ‘Guide and finding a show that’s so sure of itself that it screams “Yeah, that’s right – twenty minutes. Twenty minutes! I know what I’m about, and I only need twenty minutes to lay it on you.” Apparently, I love anthropomorphising a précis into a slightly aggressive, yet utterly confident, spruiker.

Anyway…

With nametags securely applied (in exchange for our ticket stub), we entered The Rastelli to encounter our hostess, Ellen Steele, who transports us via the schoolyard to a teenage party… the base age of which, weirdly, seems to get older as the performance progresses.

While a clock on the wall counts down the twenty minutes of the show, Steele tweaks our memories with the application of teen-era peer pressure and shaming: we play pass-the-parcel, we answer “have you ever” questions (apparently, I hung onto my virginity the longest out of the capacity audience), and we’re encouraged to goad other couples into snogging.

Steele scoots through a handful of characters – an irritable mum, an unstoppable party girl, an awkwardly shy and flirty girl (yes, yes – I was Ellen’s crush for the evening!) – as she falls in love, falls out of love, drinks too much, helps a drunk friend out, and even demonstrates a bit of machismo… before leaving us in a happy hangover of reminiscence.

I originally thought that The Awkward Years may have been too young for me… but Steele has presented a timeless collection of teenage reminders. And as much as I loved this perfectly-weighted performance, I have no inclination to further return to that stage of my life… it’s scary.

[2015082] Fake it ’til you Make it by Bryony Kimmings and Tim Grayburn

[2015082] Fake it ’til you Make it by Bryony Kimmings and Tim Grayburn

Bryony Kimmings & Tim Grayburn @ Royal Croquet Club – The Black Box

8:00pm, Thu 26 Feb 2015

Here’s another show that had a heap of Fringe-going buzz around it… but the buzz was somewhat tempered. Rather than the usual “You must see this!” kind of rave, Fake it ’til you Make it got more guarded “Oh, it’s amazing…” statements that trailed off as the recommender re-comtemplated the show.

And that’s fair enough, really… because not everyone would be thrilled to go and see a show that focusses on clinical depression.

But Bryony Kimmings kicks off Fake it ’til you Make it by declaring that it’s “a love story”. And that’s certainly true: at the top of the show, there’s a lot of delightful vignettes between Kimmings and her (real-life) partner, Tim Grayburn: we’re told of their burgeoning love, the extraordinary and everyday blisses, and we watch them dance together, and it’s super sweet. But all the while, Tim is hiding in plain sight. His face – his eyes – are obscured from the audience by clouds, paper bags, masks… sometimes comically so.

The performance takes a bit of a dark turn when Kimmings recounts the discovery of pills in Grayburn’s possession; despite being in a relationship with him for several months, she had no idea that he had been taking the pills… anti-depressants, as it turned out.

Thereafter rolls a discussion of the stigma associated with clinical depression in men: the perceived inability to talk about it, the societal dismissal of depression as an issue (the phrase “suck it up” rightfully comes in for a battering), and the compounding effect of masculine stereotypes. This discussion mixes media, as befits Kimmings’ performance-art roots: they erect a little tent onstage and use it to present lovemaking shadow puppetry; they play recorded snippets of their common exploration of Grayburn’s depression (which were occasionally a very tough listen). The moments documenting Tim’s withdrawal from anti-depressants? Harrowing.

But the narrative leads to the realisation that, as a couple, they could help both Tim and others – sufferers of clinical depression, and the people that love them – by creating a performance… this performance. Grayburn – who works in advertising, and is certainly not a self-proclaimed performer – agrees… but only if he can hide his face. Hence, the masks… and a beautiful denouement.

(Without wanting to belittle Tim’s plight) I battle with depression as well; it’s very much a cyclical thing with me, but I’m “lucky” in that the dark patches seem to be getting shorter, and the intervals between them getting longer. But that’s taken a fair bit of work on my (and my counsellor’s) part… and – as open as I can be – there’s still a tinge of shame associated with talking about that.

And that’s what was so heartwarming about Fake it ’til you Make it for me: it created a compassionate, safe space where it was possible to recognise and talk about depression, love, and emotional support from a male perspective. It was fearless in what it showed the audience about the performers (especially Tim, the non-performer), and the closing moments? So very, very, tear-wellingly beautiful and touching and wonderful.

[2015081] White Rabbit Red Rabbit

[2015081] White Rabbit Red Rabbit

Nassim Soleimanpour [writer] & Dave Bloustien [performer] @ Royal Croquet Club – The Rastelli

6:15pm, Thu 26 Feb 2015

Playwright Nassim Soleimanpour wrote White Rabbit Red Rabbit as a means of virtually travelling outside his native Iran; as a conscientious objector, he was unable to leave the country until recently (and now resides in Germany). Written in 2010, it’s an overtly political piece of theatre which grounds itself in wordy absurdity; it touches on cultural isolation, suicide, and the “choice” of inaction. And, more importantly, it challenges the audience to continue their contemplation after the event.

But whilst the writing is strong (and, despite the light opening, progressively dark), the twist in White Rabbit Red Rabbit is in the presentation: there is no director, no set (just two glasses of water), and a different actor (who has never seen the script before) for each performance. This evening our performer was Dave Bloustien, and – after being handed his script in a sealed envelope, opening it, and reading his stage directions aloud with a nervous chuckle – he measured his performance well: there were few stumbles over the words or timing of the script, and the coolness (with maybe just the faintest hint of apprehension) with which he dealt with the “poison” parts of the script was perfect.

And, once again, I wound up being called onstage – this time as a witness.

Sure, one could make the statement that White Rabbit Red Rabbit is more a play reading, rather than a performance; but it’s the power of the words, and the opportunity to see someone perform the script cold, that makes it such compelling viewing. In fact, just about the only disappointment I could associate with White Rabbit Red Rabbit was that, despite my intentions, I didn’t get to see another performance… I reckon the one with Renato Musolino would have been amazing.