Category: 2015 – Adelaide Fringe Festival

[2015050] The Fifth Horseman

[2015050] The Fifth Horseman

Poor Paw @ The Crown and Anchor Hotel

6:00pm, Fri 20 Feb 2015

So I’m trying to figure out the Schedule and there’s this interesting sounding theatre piece that’s on at the Cranka for three nights and it calls itself “grim” and that’s enticing and I’m thinking about it and then I get a charming email from a member of the company asking me to come along and I think “hey that’s nice!” so I fire off my usual “I don’t do comps” message and go straight to FringeTIX to lock it in.

That’s pretty much how my Fringe planning works, only (usually) without all the friendly emails.

And so I find myself at the Cranka at 6pm on a Friday night… and pre-sales are about what I’d expect for this timeslot (i.e. few), and walk-ups are about what I’d expect for a Friday night (i.e. fewer). And that makes me sad, because Sam – that’s the chap from Poor Paw who contacted me – had mentioned that they were from Brisbane, and I always start feeling sorry for people who pack their hopes and dreams into a suitcase and fly halfway across the country for a long weekend to try and make a go of it in the choc-a-bloc Fringe programme only to wind up with an audience of about ten people at one of your three performances.

Anyway…

A dark and moody opening heightens my curiosity – what do I expect as I watch two black-clad shadows slink across the murky stage, guided by torchlight? – until the torch is dropped, there’s a quiet profanity from one of the shadows, and the comical tone is established. From there, The Fifth Horseman weaves a (frankly) incomprehensible tale that seemed to revolve around the reclamation of a $16.21 Avon debt… but there’s also a dead cat, more dubious door-to-door sales techniques, and a shitload of gothic face paint and costuming.

And laughs, let’s not forget the laughs. And some apocalypse or other.

Despite not clearly figuring out what was going on, I was genuinely entertained by the ramshackle antics of the protagonists, Gavin and Ripley; they’re constantly breaking the fourth wall (without making the practice feel too undergraduate), and there’s a delicious ascension in the final act before tumbling – pleasingly! – into a hot mess of a denouement. This may have been one of those I-don’t-know-what-I-just-saw-but-it-pleased-me kind of shows, but that’s just fine by me.

[2015049] Calypso Nights

[2015049] Calypso Nights

Theatre Beating @ Tuxedo Cat – Perske Pavilion

11:00pm, Thu 19 Feb 2015

I’ve been a big fan of Theatre Beating since the amazing Constantinople in 2012 (which was then followed by Squidboy and … him), so Calypso Nights was shortlisted on the company name alone. Which meant, of course, that once again I walked into a venue with little idea of what to expect.

A disappointingly small audience filed in to the Perske to be confronted by Barnie Duncan’s alter-ego for the evening, Venezuelan Calypso DJ Juan Vesuvius. Vesuvius was spinning records as we entered, performing the worst cuts between songs imaginable… stop/start, awkward gaps, massive BPM swings, mistimed cutovers. It was mesmerisingly bad DJing, and bloody hilarious to watch him appear ever-so-pleased with himself upon every failure success.

When Vesuvius starts speaking to us, it’s in thickly accented Spanish; after a minute or so, he visibly recognises our confusion, and is startled to learn that we’re an English-speaking audience, prompting a re-start of the show. And then we’re into the “content” of the show: an aural exploration of calypso music and rhythms. He plays examples of Soca (“It mean… cunnilingus,” Vesuvius explained), and helpfully contrasted it to a bad German-language pop record (“…and this is German linguist.”).

Throughout, the music is a glorious mix of smooth latin grooves, afro-beat, and cheesey classics, all mixed together in Vesuvius’ inimitable style… and his comments, whether on love or war or the music itself, were brilliantly twisted and surreal: bedding a lover or calming the North Korean warmongering were equivalent problems in Juan’s eyes, and his explanation of the Mexican flag adorning his DJ desk was hilarious.

As usual, I – the only person brave enough to sit in the front row – got roped into being Vesuvius’ stagehand for the evening. Initially involved in a hilariously protracted attempt to light & hold up a candle (during which Vesuvius never broke eye contact, his eyes full of fear and panic… and lust), I eventually got dragged up onstage to help perform a romance scene (with the aid of some terrible record covers) and play maracas (and I’m a bloke: rhythm is not my strong suit). The devolution of the performance into a dance party denouement just felt perfect.

Calypso Nights became my number one recommendation of the Fringe: I thought it was absolutely brilliant fun, and could think of nothing more enjoyable that seeing this with a group of friends and a couple of beers. Here’s hoping that Barnie/Juan return for the 2016 Fringe, because I can think of a heap of new friends that would love to experience this madness.

[2015048] Adam Knox – Listen Closely, We Haven’t Much Time

[2015048] Adam Knox – Listen Closely, We Haven’t Much Time

Adam Knox @ Producers Cranny

10:00pm, Thu 19 Feb 2015

The same friend that had recommended Marcus Ryan had also urged me to catch Adam Knox’s last Adelaide show; this seemed like a great idea when I was planning, but – after tickets had been bought & the aforementioned shocker had been seen – I was feeling a bit… well, less-than-confident.

There’s not much of a crowd in, and – based on the other young comedians in the room, usually a good sign of comps on offer – I suspect that there weren’t that many tickets sold. And Knox – who is chirpy and affable, despite recognising the loss he’s probably making on the room – opens up with some friendly banter, before taking a dark turn into the description of his mugging on Hindley Street (or was it a mugging?).

Knox has a battery of jokes in his arsenal, usually based on short half-stories, and he has a knack of creating expectation with his delivery… but what he lacks is polish. There’s little in the way of segues between his jokes – unless you count references to his notebook – and some of his stories drift off into nothingness; his closing joke (involving a friend at an abortion clinic) had a great build-up and had me keenly anticipating the punch, but the final line lacked the impact that it needed to comfortably close the show off. And that, unfortunately, had me leaving the venue unsatisfied.

But let me give credit where credit’s due: Knox is certainly capable of writing a good joke… or even a heap of great jokes. But he appears to be unwilling to string them together in any structured way… and that just makes the whole show feel lazy.

[2015047] Gravity Boots presents: Sassy Monkey and the Black Onion Pudding

[2015047] Gravity Boots presents: Sassy Monkey and the Black Onion Pudding

Gravity Boots @ Tuxedo Cat – Cusack Theatre

8:30pm, Thu 19 Feb 2015

Let’s keep this one short and sweet: it’s well known that I love Gravity Boots, and nothing about this show is going to change that.

Even though I’d seen most of these surreal sketches during the Boots’ monthly rehearsal cycle last year, a few had changed: the Four Jars sketch (with the letter “P”) felt more compact, and Cat & Pig was absolutely taut. Radio Play was still a joyful meander into the mind of a lunatic, and the new Bookshop adventure was similarly bizarre.

Gravity Boots are still my favourite sketch comedy team, and Sassy Monkey and the Black Onion Pudding shows them at their surreal best. With imagination to burn – and the performance chops to bring their ideas to life – I doubt I’ll tire of their comedy anytime soon.

[2015046] A Hip Hikers Guide To The Galaxy

[2015046] A Hip Hikers Guide To The Galaxy

Backwards Anorak @ Tuxedo Cat – Mayall Room

7:15pm, Thu 19 Feb 2015

I’m the first punter in a pretty-full audience to enter the Mayall Room, and as soon as I see two people already sitting at either end of the front row I know that they’re plants for the show. I sit next to one of them and attempt to engage in small-talk; that did not go well, either because of her laser-like focus on the performance to come, or the fact that I was twice as old as everyone else in the room.

Opening with an embarrassingly self-unaware dance number, A Hip Hikers Guide is (surprisingly) an unrequited love story, featuring Prince Harian on a galactic quest to find a wife, whilst his doting slave-girl Minge tags along. There’s a bunch of songs (it was really cathartic to be part of the audience ensemble singing “Fuck off, Minge”), some really juvenile humour, and – yes – the two “audience” members who were in the room early were called onstage as indicative hipsters for the “Fuck Off, It’s My Time” song… which seemed apt.

There was something that really rubbed me the wrong way with A Hip Hikers Guide; maybe it was the costuming, which seemed to be a hipster sneer at the fashion of my beloved eighties. Or maybe it was the smutty (in a bad way) dialogue that seemed to be written for fifteen-year old boys. Or maybe it was the casual don’t-give-a-fuck-oh-maybe-I-really-do pretentiousness of the production…

Look – it’s fair to say that I was not the target audience for this show. It’s also fair to say that I really didn’t enjoy it all that much. But I’ll happily acknowledge that there was an almost belligerent confidence to its delivery that suggests that the Backwards Anorak team are delivering exactly what they want… I just don’t think that I’m interested in that show.

[2015045] This Can’t End Well

[2015045] This Can’t End Well

David Innes @ The Science Exchange – Boardroom (RiAus)

6:00pm, Thu 19 Feb 2015

The RiAus has a bunch of wonderful – though under-used – performance spaces, but there’s a teensy little problem with the Boardroom: if it’s a light-ish crowd (and there were maybe only a third of the seats filled for this performance), it becomes a sleepy space, and… well… look, I was forty-odd shows into my Fringe. I may have dozed a little.

This Can’t End Well is a solo piece in which David Innes plays three characters from different generations in the same family. Each character is buffeted by an element of conflict: the great-grandmother, one of the few female scientists of her day, is spurned by her husband as she continues her research into acetone. The grandfather suffers from class inferiority, comically alternating between mellifluous play readings and his working-class voice. And there’s another character facing the prospect of coming out to his conservative family.

Innes delivers these three interleaved narratives with a sweet earnestness… and a truckload of humour. Even in the darkest moments of the performance, there’s another deliciously awful – and often highbrow! – pun right around the corner. The text is also surprisingly clever: there’s a lot of literary, scientific, and pop-culture references that could slide by if you weren’t aware of the topic… and I’m certain I missed a few!

Most of all, though, This Can’t End Well was a thoroughly enjoyable piece of theatre, perfectly suited to the RiAus (though I could have done without the DozeyRoom!). But the most memorable moment for me was entirely selfish: as the play closed out, Innes remarked “Not all stories can end well…”. At that very moment, my phone – which, for some reason, I’d left on Silent rather than Aeroplane Mode – buzzed in my pocket, and I knew (without looking) that it was my girlfriend sending me a sweet, sweet message. And my brain just sookily popped out a retort to Innes’ line: “No. Some stories can end brilliantly.”

[2015044] HEX

[2015044] HEX

James Welsby @ Royal Croquet Club – The Black Box

11:00pm, Wed 18 Feb 2015

It had not ben a great night of entertainment thus far, and I found myself running – well, jogging at a fair clip – halfway across a humid city to make it to HEX on time. I arrived just as the tail of the queue entered The Black Box, so I took a seat on an aisle and waited for the torrent of sweat to begin. And, as I waited, I tried to recollect what I knew about HEX… and the answer was a big fat bugger all. It had been heavily recommended by multiple friends, and it was supposedly a dance performance… but that was all the knowledge I had prior to the performance.

The lights drop, and there’s a few “woo!”s from the boisterous opening-night crowd. Low notes start playing, and everything starts feeling ominous. An immediately identifiable Grim Reaper very deliberately makes its way to the centre of the stage. Everything becomes super ominous.

And then a massive disco freakout happens. And it was glorious.

All of a sudden, HEX became an almost aggressively joyful dance piece… and the dancers (director/choreographer James Welsby, James Andrews, and Chafia Brooks) were excellent. The choreography makes full use of the space (and leverages the raked seating), creating a very dynamic performance. And Claudio Tocco’s sound design – including the gorgeous noise texture piece in the middle of the show – was absolutely perfect.

It struck me (within the opening third) that The Grim Reaper reminded me of the old AIDS awareness ads that ran on TV when I was in high school… and then it all made sense. HEX felt like a stylised peek at late-eighties gay club culture: the exuberance of the opening third, the powerful realisation of the threat accompanies the textured middle, with a bit of reclamation in the final act. The symbolic snapping of the Reaper’s scythe at the end of the show intimates that lessons have been learnt, and the spirit will not be dominated.

Even if I’ve got the message all wrong, I love love loved HEX. It was smart, it was funny, it was playful, it was bleak; and, most of all, it was genuinely exciting dance and movement.

[2015043] mix juice

[2015043] mix juice

Makoto Inoue @ Gluttony – The Bally

10:00pm, Wed 18 Feb 2015

There’s one person waiting inside The Bally as I rush in at the last possible minute: he’s sitting in the second row from the back, but I – in trying to support the artist – sat in the second row from the front. I turned around and beckoned the stranger forward; it was only when he reluctantly sat across the aisle from me that I noticed he was a Honey Pot delegate.

Great – I was the only paying punter at the show. Again.

We got to talking, and it turns out that he’s the Artistic Director for the Hi Seoul Festival, so we rambled about Seoul and swapped notes about other shows. It was a really lovely chat, and he gave me his business card; later in the week, we ran into each other at another show, and he gave me the Hi Seoul programme… and another life goal.

The house lights dropped, and a pre-recorded backing track sprang to life: a spotlight picks out Makoto Inoue as he mimes his way onstage in the form of a robot. His moves are good – sharp and crisp – and the convergence of the mime and sound effects works well… until the sound abruptly shifted from a mechanised beat to the gurgles, screams, and cries of a baby.

Inoue’s mime loses its stiffness as he creates the impression of a baby suckling at a giant teat. How weird! I thought… How Japanese! But the scene kept going and going and going and more suckling and more crying and more suckling and this is getting awkward now nope let’s keep grabbing that giant imaginary breast and keep going on and on and on…

Inoue suckled at that mimed breast for what felt like an hour. It was painful to watch. I glanced across at my new Honey Pot friend, only to discover that he’d already moved back to his original seat at the back of the venue. I glanced at my phone – the show had been only been going ten minutes.

The suckling eventually (thankfully!) stopped, and we return to the robot; it’s being improved, it’s now a warrior, and the Terminator 2 theme accompanies the robot’s deployment to the battlefield… cue another painful hour (or perhaps five minutes) of protracted gunfight sequences, sound garish and mime convincing.

And then the robot finds a baby on the battlefield. A baby. A crying, screaming, anxious-to-suckle baby.

…and at that point, I couldn’t wait for mix juice to end.

Regardless, I tried to support the man onstage, miming his heart out in this story that was acoustically assembled and competently performed. When he reached his audience interaction bits, I did what I could. And when the show was over, I offered him polite applause… and then looked around for my Korean friend. He had already left. I was the only audience member left (apart from the bored-looking tech).

Inoue came up to me and shook my hand. “I’m sorry you didn’t have more people,” I offered noncommittally; he smiled, and still holding my hand, pulled me closer to him: “I need word of mouth!” he said in a practised phrase that was more-than-coloured by desperation.

I’ve never felt more pressured in my life. And I didn’t like that at all. And my lingering memories of mix juice will be a lovely Korean man, a sweaty Japanese mime desperately telling me to shill for him, and that fucking mewling baby character.

And I started musing about all disputes between Japan and Korea, and wondered whether I’d inadvertently seen that played out this evening.

[2015042] Marcus Ryan – Love Me Tinder

[2015042] Marcus Ryan – Love Me Tinder

Marcus Ryan @ Producers Cranny

8:45pm, Wed 18 Feb 2015

Although this show wasn’t initially on my Short(ha!)list, friends had talked up Marcus Ryan’s performance to the point where I thought I should check him out.

You know what? My “instincts” are a better judge of a show than my “friends”.

Things were promising early: Ryan starts the show in the character of his own manager, and there’s a few awkward, self-effacing laughs to be had at his expense. But when Ryan himself takes to the stage… well, that’s when things went downhill.

I’m guessing the first fifteen minutes of the show were self-aggrandising career highlights – “I’ve performed in a squillion countries, I’ve been a professional comic for ten years” – which made the hackneyed “welcome to the show / isn’t my venue shit” padding seem a little whiny. I managed to glean a couple of half-smiles from Ryan’s early online dating material, but the Tinder-related content (which only appeared in the back half of the show) was predictable, at best. In fact, the only “material” that managed to rise above the “meh” rating came as a result of the couples in the audience that had met via online dating (including one platonic couple)… their quips eclipsed anything Ryan himself had penned.

When I read my tweet about this show, I smiled in recollection… I really enjoyed writing that at the time. But now, nine months later, thinking about Love Me Tinder actually makes me a little bit angry. I found it absolutely banal and a waste of my time… but maybe that was just me, or this night, or this audience, or a confluence of events that conspired to create a crappy event. I’m sure Marcus Ryan is a nice guy, but I really did not enjoy this chunk of my life.

[2015041] Handle It – A One Woman Show

[2015041] Handle It – A One Woman Show

Laura Jackson @ Bakehouse Theatre – Studio

7:30pm, Wed 18 Feb 2015

I was beginning to think that we’d returned to the halcyon days of the 2000 Fringe, when every second show was a one-hand, multi-character treatise… after my previous show, Handle It featured writer/performer Laura Jackson performing a seven-character narrative exploring one of the darker sides of social networking: the posting of compromising photos without consent, or revenge porn.

It opens with a bloke sitting on the couch, putting his Playstation 4 controller through its paces with hungover determination. James answers his phone, and at once we can see the conflicted male ego on display: equal parts bravado and fear, as the one-sided conversation lays bare the premise of the show: last night, revealing photos were taken of 18-year-old university student Kelsey Armitage without her knowledge, and they were being posted on the usual networking sites.

As Jackson performs a quick costume change, a Facebook chat is projected onto the stage: it shows the aftermath of the photos being posted online, and the response of the guys felt absolutely true-to-life… and sickening, with vicious objectification and testosterone-fuelled bullshit on display. Thereafter comes the fallout: Jackson flits between two of Kelsey’s sisters (with differing views on the perpetrator, and Kelsey herself), an internet sexologist lecturing on modern social behavioural issues, a young solicitor, and a local cop, already weary of cases like Kelsey’s.

Frustration with the lack of legal recourse – not to mention the fact that the photos are already “out there” – propels the story along at a rapid clip; but the persistent secondary thread – a chat session between a male and one of Kelsey’s friends, projected onstage during costume changes – feels terribly contrived. Apart from the toned-down language, that chat is the only part of the dialogue that doesn’t ring true.

Handle It swings for the fences early, attacking rape culture and the pervasive undercurrent of the patriarchy in society with deserved venom… but as the play touches on Kelsey’s fragility – and the eventual “resolution” of the crime as being a domestic violence issue – these big intentions feel watered down and, worse, trivialised. And that’s a bit of a shame, because the bulk of the performance deals with the big issues really well… it’s just let down by some loose writing elsewhere.

[2015040] Media Release

[2015040] Media Release

Isabella Valette @ Producers Warehouse

6:00pm, Wed 18 Feb 2015

April Fools wants to be a star, and isn’t afraid of a little compromise to get it. After an ex-schoolmate suggests that reality TV would offer an easy path to stardom, April worms her way into the faux-reality star factory… and, along with the cast of characters that surround her, discovers that there is a price to be paid.

Isabella Valette wrote and performed all the characters in Media Release: April gets the majority of her time, but April’s agent is a wonderfully insidious creation, with her (closeted gay) brother bringing both humour and a hint of darkness. The characters of April’s celebrity boyfriend and sister-in-law, however, feel a little less developed.

Her performances were sound, but I found the plot – and a fair amount of the dialogue – to be hopelessly familiar and stereotyped… and maybe that’s the point, except that there were few twists or surprises in the script. Sprinkling musical mash-ups into the performance helps liven things up a little: Valette can certainly sing, but her voice was often drowned out by a hot mix, meaning that the satire and snark of her songs was mostly lost.

Media Release‘s saving grace is its denouement: rather than some contrived happy ending, an appearance on This Is Your Death puts a deliciously grim spin on the preceding actions, and appealed mightily to the misanthrope in me. But it’s not really a sufficient payoff for the effort of wading through the hackneyed majority; I’m sure Isabella Valette will produce some great work in the future, but Media Release should probably be considered a well-intentioned stepping-stone.

[2015039] Rhino Room Late Show 10th Year Anniversary!

[2015039] Rhino Room Late Show 10th Year Anniversary!

Mickey D, Dave Campbell, Demi Lardner, Damien Power, Matt Vesely, Tom Ballard, Celia Pacquola @ Rhino Room – Upstairs

11:00pm, Tue 17 Feb 2015

It’s only now that I’m writing this post – nine months after seeing the show – that I realised that I only rocked up to Rhino’s Late Show once this year. Previous years have seen me previewing comedians at multiple Late Shows; but the prevalence of other late-night ensemble shows, as well as Rhino’s refinement of their schedule (with Set List taking a prominent spot) meant that the Late Show just wasn’t as convenient for me this year. Apparently.

But it’s still a pretty good late-night venue for a giggle. You’d think that, having seen Mickey D emcee a number of times, that his Adelaide references may have started to get old; they haven’t, and his increasingly athletic appearance seems to be bringing a much more focussed assault on the audience’s funny bones as he worked the crowd with ease. Dave Campbell was the first main act of the night, and contributed his fantastic crap-share-house-in-Prospect story, which is always good for a laugh; Demi Lardner followed him with a fantastic (and typically surreal) bit on the Dyson Airblade (two words: ghost fisting). Damien Power – who I’ve yet to see perform an entire set – rounded out the first bracket with a storming piece on cyborg advertising; whilst pre-bought tickets precluded me from seeing him this year, I’ll most certainly be seeking him out in the future, because he was brilliant.

Matt Vesely (one of the young Next Gen comics) opened the second bracket with some amiable discussion of basketball shorts and dubious Alanis Morissette pranks, and the ever-appealing Tom Ballard kicked off his spot with some cheap laughs at his mike stand, before moving on to some “celebrity” nightclub toilet hijinks… never afraid to gossip, our Tom! Finally, Celia Pacquola took the headline spot; whilst I was initially concerned that I may hear some material repeated from earlier in the evening, she smashed out all-new material: the joys of being single and the protocols of farting within couples both provided heaps of laughs, and – once again – she proved that she’s a comedic force to be reckoned with.

Once again, the Rhino Late Show proved to deliver a solid ninety minutes of entertainment, with Pacquola and Power being the picks of the acts, and Mickey D hosting like a champion. And, with the future of the Rhino Room up in the air, I’m kinda sad I didn’t make it to more Late Shows this year.

[2015038] Dr. Brown: Bexperiments…with Terry Nameo

[2015038] Dr. Brown: Bexperiments…with Terry Nameo

Philip Burgers & Terry Nameo @ Tuxedo Cat – Perske Pavilion

9:45pm, Tue 17 Feb 2015

Dr Brown I know and love… and, more importantly, I already knew was in top form this year. But who was Terry Nameo? A neo-clowning guru? Brown’s sensei, or protégé? As Brown and Nameo walked among the crowd from the TuxCat box office to the Perske, an attempted chat with the pair didn’t really enlighten me at all… I decided that the best thing to do – as with all Dr Brown shows – was to go in without any preconceptions.

Just as well, really.

After casually wandering around the near-capacity crowd and misting us with water spray bottles, the two men met each other mid-stage and started greeting each other. The greetings became longer, wordier, and started to be accompanied by light touches: a shake of the hand, a brush of the shoulder. But the words soon became secondary, as the physical contact started to linger. A sense of longing developed.

And I was thinking: man, those boys have totally nailed physical expression. Everything about their movements started emitting love, and before long they were silently screaming lust… I felt like I was watching two lovers hook up for the first time.

…and then they leapt into a buttered-bread food fight (which just happened to engage the crowd). No biggie.

Brown sat with the audience and directed Nameo in an old man sketch… but the intent behind it was obtuse. In fact, the intent behind all of the show was murky.

That’s not to say it wasn’t funny: it certainly was. That’s not to say it wasn’t well performed: Nameo appeared to keep up with Brown’s exemplary clowning, and (as mentioned above) their general acting skills were quite astounding. But – as with all of Brown’s shows – there’s an element of “What are they doing?” incredulity onstage, where you can’t quite figure out whether the entire show is improvised or not. After all this time, I’m still left confused… amazed, and confused.

After the show, I hang around and say hello to Phil: he greeted me warmly and introduced me to Terry. I bit the bullet and asked them how much they were improvising: “It’s still forming,” they said. I told them that I’m amazed there’s a structure at all; they both smiled cheekily.

I liked that.

[2015037] Matt Price: A British Bloke’s Guide to Being a Man

[2015037] Matt Price: A British Bloke’s Guide to Being a Man

Matt Price @ Austral Hotel – Red Room

8:30pm, Tue 17 Feb 2015

In my experience, seeing back-to-back standup shows can often be fraught with danger: a bad show early on can sour the mood for subsequent performers, whereas a great show can expose the flaws of those later in the run.

So it was this evening.

I’d just seen Celia Pacquola perform a stellar set, then rushed in to Matt Price amiably chatting to the small crowd that had turned up for his show. And Price can tell a story, and most certainly has plenty of interesting stories to tell: drawing from his own life experiences, we hear about people and anecdotes that befell him during his blue-collar working life (who knew fisheries could generate such humour?) and, later, tales of prison (for the insane) gigs gone wrong.

The stories themselves are interesting and well-told: Price is an affable chap. But at times his connection to the audience seemed strained, and the segues between his tales are clumsy (at best) and – in contrast to my previous show – felt absolutely amateurish.

And I’m sure Price is not an amateur, but it’d be a lie to say that A British Bloke’s Guide to Being a Man (a deceptive title) wasn’t a massive let-down after the high of Pacquola.

[2015036] Celia Pacquola – Let Me Know How It All Works Out

[2015036] Celia Pacquola – Let Me Know How It All Works Out

Celia Pacquola @ Garden of Unearthly Delights – Studio 7

7:15pm, Tue 17 Feb 2015

After a huge amount of buzz, I was gutted to not be able to see Celia Pacquola at the Rhino Room last year; by the time I’d had explicit recommendations for her show, the remainder of her short run had been sold out. But I resolved to not miss out this year, and so – running late from my previous show, and with a plan for a quick escape to another show – I found myself on the aisle way down the back of Studio 7.

Pacquola’s entrance is almost ditzy, and she generates an immediate rapport with the audience. The central thread of her show – a meeting with a fortune teller – presents a deep mine of material, but she effortlessly dances around it with with well-written sidetracks, tying it all together with a fantastic denouement. Along the way, there’s plenty of self-deprecating remarks, a little bit of potentially-embarrasing oversharing, and oodles of charm.

And there’s not much else to say, really. Despite the hype that had been built up within me, Celia Pacquola exceeded all expectations with a remarkably charming presence and sparkling delivery of some gorgeously written material.