Your Mother Chucks Rocks And Shells review (Melbourne International Comedy Festival)

With less than a week left of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, I think the most bizarre yet most fascinating show I have seen is Ange Lavoipierre's Your Mother Chucks Rocks And Shells. I mean the title alone... As we take our seats Lavoipierre is on stage in a nightgown holding a pillow, trying to sleep but insomnia is a bitch and keeping her up. With a few tricks up her sleeve, Lavoipierre attempts to tackle her lack of sleep head on with incredibly hilarious results.

It's 2am when Lavoipierre’s brain, with a charming French accent, begins speaking to her and preventing her from falling asleep. She deduces that watching a movie will help her fall asleep and of ALL THE FILMS in the world, she decides the 1973 horror film The Exorcist is a suitable option (and if you’ve seen this you’ll have a better understanding of where the title for this show came from). From then on, we are treated to an absurd exploration of her twilight musings on religion, sexuality and the patriarchy through The Exorcist along with its 'deleted scenes' set in random alternate movies, such as The Matrix. Sounds weird? Buckle up. It gets weirder.

Lavoipierre brings sketch and Generative AI together that gently raises the ethical issues around this new form of technology in which a command is received and creates something entirely new in the form of text, images, audio and video. It's extremely clever how this is done and displays the craft and creativity that Lavoipierre possesses with this form of storytelling.

The show is especially tech heavy, with 218 sound queues, and as far as I could tell, it was a flawless execution of each one. Lavoipierre’s response and interactions with these queues while engaging with us is a brilliant feat, one that includes some very entertaining but light audience participation.

Your Mother Chucks Rocks And Shells starts with The Beatles' "I'm So Tired". Fortunately for us, Lavoipierre is full of energy to perform this eccentric show that is weird enough to surprise you but grounded enough to allow you to relate to every single thought that is played out.

SHOW DETAILS



Venue: Butterfly Club, 5 Carson Lane, Melbourne

Season: until 23 April | 8:30pm
Duration: 60 minutes

Tickets: $37 Full | $33 Conc
Bookings: Butterfly Club and Melbourne International Comedy Festival