[2015116] Marcel Blanch-de Wilt: Death of a Disco Dancer
Marcel Blanch-de Wilt @ Producers Cranny
10:00pm, Thu 5 Mar 2015
Marcel Blanch-de Wilt is a really lovely bloke. He’s totes friendly, put the hard yards into running a great venue this year (Producers), and has a fun podcast on which I get the occasional shout-out… even if it’s for the wrong reasons:
A couple of shout-outs on episode 86. Thanks for the tweeeets.
— BEST FRIENDS CLUB! (@_BestFriendClub) June 25, 2014
@The_Loose_Five Just heard my "shout-out"… you made me re-read my own blog. HA! Chongers is right, I am a fuckhead ;)
— Pete Muller (@festivalfreakAU) June 25, 2014
@festivalfreakAU Nah, we met you and you're great. We were kids back then.
— BEST FRIENDS CLUB! (@_BestFriendClub) June 25, 2014
Oh well – you live by the sword, you die by the sword ;)
Death of a Disco Dancer is Marcel’s first solo standup show, and it too is really lovely. He grooves his way into show with an upbeat opening, all high-fives and happy tunes; before long, we’re deep into the core of the show, with Marcel telling us the perils of being a guy who enjoys a dance. A shoe to the head should dampen anyone’s enthusiasm, but not Marcel’s.
A reasonably well-structured set takes us into Marcel’s day job (casual teaching of shithead students), and also through some of his ventures into the entertainment industry. There’s also some freestyle rapping and a bit of self-reflection, but there’s not a mean-spirited phrase in the whole show, which is a lovely change… and he’s nice enough to offer a packet of chips around the crowd.
In fact, there’s only a couple of down-sides to this show, neither of which can really be attributed to Marcel. The first is that there was a tiny audience in this evening; I think I was the only paying punter, with another artist and maybe a couple of Producers staffers rounding out the crowd… this made me sad. The other downer was that, having seen Marcel perform a fair few spots at comedy rooms après-Fringe, and having consumed all his podcast output, a lot of his material was already familiar to me.
But you know what? That doesn’t make it any less funny. And when you’ve got a likeable guy telling funny, positive jokes onstage, that’s a pretty good recipe for a Good Time. I only wish there’d been more people there to see it.
(116) Marcel Blanch-de Wilt- Death of a Disco Dancer: Amusing & introspective tales on how to not say "Could You Not…". #ff2015 #ADLfringe
— Pete Muller (@festivalfreakAU) March 5, 2015