Santoni Cabaretoni at the Tuxedo Cat

Gah! In the words of Rebecca Black "we so excited, we we we so excited". Last night I found my Mecca. And I will fulfil God's will twice by running back there this evening.


I think the Tuxedo Cat just might become my favourite thing of the festival. It's an independent, underground (literally) and mighty fun venue. The first time I took someone there last year their comment as we were walking down the stairs was: "We're going to a show, right? You're not about to kill me...?". You can see why this thought came into their head:

But once you get inside you are welcomed into a place which celebrates innovative, independent and daring comedy. Like I said, Mecca.


Santoni Cabaretoni  is organised by the prodigious Stephanie Brotchie of Slow Clap (and possibly other people – probably Dr Brown – I'm sure you're great too). It runs every Friday and Saturday of the festival (I think). Dr Brown* hosted the laid back event which included bite-sized segments of artists including:

• Wing Attack! – deliciously wordy, dry two man sketches
• Zoe Coombs Marr – I am 54% jealous that I'm not her, 46% looking forward to seeing her show and 100% wanting to be her best friend
• Sexytime! – accents, 70's costumes, brilliant characters and dance, yep, it's got it all 
• Steve Sheehan – the girl next to me actually thought an audience member had jumped on stage and was just being hilarious.

Other acts that I don't have time to write a sentence about but were totally bodacious include Dr Professor Neal Portenza, John Conway and Poet Laureate Telia Neville. The 1.5 hour show had a willing, open audience and was like a mini Gala showcasing those who haven't been paid thousands of dollars to come here by the Festival Office and are doing this comedy thing for the pure love of it. And it shows. 

I gather this thing will be different every night so no guarantees on who will be on and what will happen – but that's when the funniest stuff happens, right? 

*Update: I shook hands with him. He looked me in the eye. But he didn't say "I love you". Yet. If you don't know what I'm talking about you haven't read my earlier posts so just don't even worry about it or anything. 

Jeff Green (also known as 'A show to take your Dad to')

When I asked my Dad what he wanted to see at this year's festival he said "Somebody I know". 


Sigh.  


"Charlie Pickering?", I suggested. 


"Who?"


Shit. Head slap. I'd just chosen one of the most bearable visible comedians (aka someone from TV) and Dad doesn't know him. 


"What about...um....Rod Quantock?" 


"Last time we went to him he made fun of my cardigan."


It's true. Rod did make fun of Dad's cardigan and Dad hasn't worn it since then (2008). It's a shame really 'cause I think he was rockin' the look quite well. 


So I perused the guide and made the executive decision we'd see Jeff Green. It was a full house at the Swiss Club (I really do wonder what goes on there outside of the Comedy Festival – just a whole lot of fence-sitters meeting precisely at the prearranged time to calmly eat fondue and be generally inoffensive?). 


The audience went absolutely OFF for Jeff Green. I liked the intro and outro voiceovers. He did have loads of energy though and provides good bang for your buck in terms of punchlines per second. 


If you like punchlines about the difference between men and women and parochial gags about Australians and Englishmen. There were a few moments when I got the feeling if he strayed from the aforementioned material he might be more to my taste – like when he was talking about getting stoned when his wife and son were away and how annoying kids are. This guy is clearly making lots of money though so each to their own. 


I consider it a successful outing 'cause Dad thought the show was "excellent". And Dad paid so I didn't waste my own money (on anything other the dumplings). 


Jeff Green and cheese fondue are playing at the Swiss Club at 8.15pm until April 24. 

Watching Percy Fagan Sleep

If my Nonna was to make the soup of this show the ingredients would be something like this:

• 2 cups of melodrama, roughly chopped
• 3 litres of character-based skits*
• 3 good looking, tall, long-haired men, finely sliced
• a dash of dance
• sixteen inches of narrative
• one metric slug of  the most amazing slow motion sequence I have ever seen (reader please note: I’ve never seen the Matrix)

Think younger Pajama Men with less Pajamas, but (interestingly) more beds. These three guys impressed me heaps ‘cause their surreal jaunt had that slick, well-rehearsed feel and their commitment was undying. I laughed hardest when stuff got chaotic and messy and slightly yelly. But maybe I’m just a fan of destruction, I did, after all, pay to see 2012 at the actual cinema.

Watching Percy Fagan Sleep is playing at Eurotrash Tue–Thur, Sat and Sun at 7pm until April 10.

  

*I don’t think I could even count the number of characters these guys tackle. It’s like one of those jars at a school fete except imagine instead of all jelly beans every lolly is a different lolly. That’s a lot of lollies. Favourites included Ming the patronising, Oprah-loving American, mopey English backpackers and a professional performer at Sovereign Hill.

Al’s Music Rant

Watching this show made me totally jelly of Al’s obviously impressive (and totally obsessive) musical knowledge. He just has it all. Up there. I imagine all the little chunks of his knowledge (music and otherwise) swimming around in his head and every now and then two of them crash into each other. Then suddenly he’s figured out who has stolen something from other artists to create every song in their repertoire, what the Pancake parlor has to do with music and how classic songs would sound if they were abused by some of today’s “artists”.

Al is just so darned likeable and his show is a living, breathing, repeatable example of what happens when you let people do what they love. This show could have so easily have been a snarky rant (it does have 'Rant' in the title, afterall). Instead Al blesses us with characters, song, dance and isn’t afraid of embarrassing himself (particularly evidenced by one moment in the show that is car-crash can’t look away amazing).  Even though Al and I clearly have very different taste in music (I’ll have you know I love Ke$ha, Al) I still loved his show and so did the guy up the back who emphatically agreed with all of Al's music nerd commentary.

Someone I was at this show with last night said afterwards “You know it’s a good show when you can’t pick out your favourite bit ‘cause there are too many”. Hear hear!

Al’s Music Rant is playing at Eurotrash Tue–Thur, Sat and Sun at 9pm until 10 April. 


Also here is Al's blog from whence the show came.

Night one of my festival (also known as 'Reasons why you should see David O’Doherty’s show')

Last night, I saw three great shows and ate 72 great dumplings. This reads as a successful night in my opinion. Over said dumplings and pumpkin cakes one of my friends told me about her morning. This is what happened.

Being the good Brunswick-dwelller she is, she was riding to work. Seeing a red light up ahead she began to slow down and continued to do so until a turning car helped her to come to a complete stop by knocking her over. Feeling pretty shocked she looked up and got another shock when she saw David O’Dohety standing above her. David O’Doherty had run her over! As would be expected of someone who plays a miniature keyboard, he was gentle and apologetic. So much so that he insisted he drive her the rest of the way. The bike didn’t fit in the car. So David O’Doherty made my friend ride in the car with his publicist and he rode her bike to work for her. Then offered her tickets to his show.

Now if you’re not already convinced of how lovely he is, know this: the reason the car was turning is that they had seen a girl standing on a street corner looking upset and were pulling over to see if she needed help. I guess that’s what you get for trying to help people: physically harming others and an annoying uphill ride.

We should all go and see David O’Doherty’s show now. That or try to get hit by him when riding our bikes and he’ll give us free tickets.

A great thing I just heard

I have a secret dream. Actually, it's more a secret crazy thing I cling to against all good judgement. It's this: I'll know the man I'm supposed to marry as a sign will come in the form of a perfectly crafted, serious enough to get on air but ironic enough to make me cackle love song dedication message from him, culminating in a Richard Mercer playing Truly Madly Deeply for me. ME*.


So you'll understand why I was impressed when I heard a comedian utilising this wonderful tool this evening. Sanderson Jones is performing this festival for realz this year. He used to come and not put his name in the program but flyer out the front of the Town Hall like a tall, charming British trooper to get audiences. But now he's paid his festival fee I can totes link to his show: here 'tis. Sanderson called up Richard aka the Love God, to spurt romantic nonsense about broken hearts caused by long-distance relationships while shoe-horning jokes in anywhere he could. Hats off, Sanderson. Your ploy has worked. One more audience member here. If only he'd requested Savage Garden instead of Phil Collins' Against all odds (Take a look at me now) I'd think he was my husband.


Unless he actually is heartbroken and the jokes were just him being a tall, charming, British trooper about it all....


Sorry, Sanderson


- RAD


* I believe so strongly that this will happen that once I heard a man dedicating a song to a woman with the same name as me and, for just a split second, I thought maybe I actually was in a relationship but had just forgotten for a bit and that the voice from inside the radio was my boyfriend. 

No stars, just love*^

This post is about star rating systems and why, if they're the only thing people look at (which is too often the case) they are nonsense, useless, unhelpful and should be struck off the list of acceptable ways to interact with comedy festival shows. Yep, 'paying too much attention to stars' can join 'jumping on stage to attempt to make out with the comedian', 'taking a poo on the table' and 'not laughing at all, not even once' on the list of audience faux pas. Actually, taking a poo on the table can go on life faux pas too. Unless you're a baby. Or just really into that. In which case you should still make sure it's on your own table or you've asked permission first. 


Digression. Apologies. Deep breath. Back on track:


"But why get rid of stars?!", you wail, "Why would you want to get rid of something that is so easy to understand and let's me make an instantaneous judgement on the value of a show?". Well, underling, here's why: you should be smarter than that. For the following reasons (unlike star ratings, bulleted lists are easy and excellent).

• Reason 1: They don't actually mean anything. That's right, you heard it here first folks. Star ratings don't actually mean a show is good or bad. They just don't. Think about it. There are so many ways to make people laugh, and so many varibles in what makes one person laugh at something and another tutt tutt and purse their lips that five little stars on their lonesome couldn't possible tell you if you'll find a show funny. What does one star mean? That the reviewer laughed for only 1/5 of the show? Or that the entire audience only laughed for 1/5? One fifth of your average 60 minute show, incidentally is 12 minutes (mad mathz skillz). Now if I laughed solidly, heartily and with my belly involved for 12 minutes of a show I wouldn't necessarily think that was a bad thing. So does one star mean that you only laugh for only six minutes and that also it was a sloppy show or they did something particularly offensive. But what causes one person offense is another person's comedy gold. And yes, yes, you could get around this by getting to know your reviewer by reading everything they've ever written and cross-checking it against your own opinions, but who's got the time?! Certainly not me, I've got mixed netball to play. So my thinking is, if the review is the bit you should pay attention to why even bother with the stars.

• Reason 2: Lots of stars are easy to get. In a way. What I mean is that there are so many people and blogs and newspapers and magazines reviewing that, like Mario, you're almost bound to collect some from somewhere.  If you flip through the guide you've got impressive stars (4.5 and 5) from the following (reputable and not so reputable) outlets:
• The Herald Sun (who also pay certain cretinous columnists who not only doesn't like refugees or Indigenous Australians but apparently has a problem with Oprah. Oprah! Do you really trust them?)
• The Age
• The Scotsman
• Adelaide Advertiser [insert obligatory 'Adelaide is boring and crap' joke here]
• The Independent
• British Comedy Guide
• RHUM
• ThreeWeeks
• Monday Magazine
• Uptown Magazine
• The Times
• The List
• The Guardian
• Canberra Times
• The West Australian
• Metro
• Scotsgay
• The Pun
• Venue Magazine
• The Funny Tonne
• Hollywood Fringe Festival
• London Times
• Chortle
• The Mirror
• Time Out
• Sunday Times
• Fest Mag

• I can't think of any more reasons right now and two isn't really that many so if you think of any please let me know. Then I will add it and claim your idea as my own, mmkay? Kay good. 

Now that you've read my (bulletproof bulleted) argument I'm sure you'll be ignoring stars and instead devouring all of the reviews (and information about reviewers) before you see your shows. Or talking to friends who've seen shows. Or you might read this blog, which will faithfully stick to the no star rating system, (I did briefly consider a LOLCAT rating system but got distracted by this LOLCAT before the system could be developed) and follow me around little baby duck. Don't do that. I'm easily rattled. Really. Please stop even thinking it. I'm a paranoid hypochondriac so I'd think you were stalking me and that the air was giving me cancer. Seriously. Don't. Oh shit. What is that pain in the middle of my chest slightly to the right side? 

Well. That was informative. According to SilkDragon on WrongDiagnosis.com I've got heart disease. And you should always trust the first entry that comes up when you google 'ride side chest pain female'. With this very bad news upon me I feel I should offer you some sage advice. Advice is always much more likely to be true if it's coming from a dying person, you know. So hear this: 


When you want to go and have a bit of a laff, you can read reviews, or listen to your friends, or look at rubbish oustanding blogs before you part with your cash. Or you could just look at the poster and guide entry and take a flippin' punt on what looks good to you. And just go and have fun and be ready to laugh. That's what I'm going to do this year anyway. Which is why I'm going to see something called 'Sexytime!'. The rule about pooing may not apply here. 

'Til the festival, if I make it that far

-RAD

*I would like to thank one Katy Perry and her hit (as in hit me over the head for loving it so much) Teenage Dream for inspiration for the title of this post. That's right folks, she's not just a tackier version of Dita Von Teese and Russell Brans's missus. She's so much more than that. Singer, Dancer, Muse.


^Obviously there is one glaring exception to the 'no stars on this blog' rule and that is to inform you about my delectable taste in music and the way it informs my writing. See above.