Eric and Derek’s Hot Nuts and Popcorn Show
Mercury Cinema
11:00pm, Wed 1 Mar 2000
Score: 7
Short Review: Talk-show
Oh, how we did laugh. Eric & Derek (along with Terry and the music guy – sorry, forgot his name) present a pretty-much-nightly talk-show style performance, complete with guests, ad breaks (live “clips” from other shows) and a little stand-up. As you could imagine, the quality of the show on any given night is pretty much dependant on the guests, and what a great bunch we had tonite…
First up (after a bit of awkward banter from the “hosts”) was local Channel 10 reporter Chelsea Lewis. Entertainment reporter Chelsea Lewis. Who also covers “real” news stories. Like the Christmas Shopping. And back-to-school. To be fair, she also covers sieges – but she’s “never been in any dangerous situations”. Fine. Pretty much what you’d expect to hear from an entertainment reporter. But she also mentioned how she gets a little angry when she sees one of her stories get butchered by her bosses (“bosses” being Channel 10, a Fringe sponsor). And that she doesn’t know how long she’ll stay with Channel 10 “because of all the down-sizing going on”. And that what she really wants to do is documentaries – “I want to change people’s lives. Especially about racism and homophobia, they’re my two big topics” (you could feel the audience groan).
Well, good on her I say. Who cares that, as an entertainment reporter – reporting on the Fringe – she’d only sat through two entire shows (including this one?). Who cares that it’s every journo’s dream to do doco’s, and that people who bad-mouth their bosses aren’t likely to survive the next round of down-sizing? Who cares that someone who wants to change people’s lives doesn’t know who Michael Moore is? Who cares about my appalling over-use of sarcasm? Get over it, Pete!!
The ad break for the night was a snippet from “Help Wanted”, which looked to be a slapstick-ish bit of physical theatre. The real bonus for the night (besides listening to “but I really want to make documentaries” – FrontLine was sooooo accurate) was that the Tripod boys appeared for a bit of a chat. Witty to the extreme, they colluded well with Eric & Derek to create much mirth and merriment.
In all – the amusement factor was high, though probably not for all the right reasons. As always, your mileage may vary…