Tap Head - Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

Barnie Juancan is running late for his open mic comedy night again. He is nervous but once he's done his mic check he's ready to go. Meanwhile, a tap head called Tap Head is also working on its stand-up comedy and sharing its philosophies on life. With his Melbourne International Comedy Festival show Tap Head, comedian and mime artist, Barnie Duncan, presents two stories of two different beings who probably have more in common than they think. 

Watching these two beings come to life by Duncan is an extremely rewarding experience and has the audience become heavily invested in their lives. They may appear to be very separate stories - only linked by their stand-up aspirations - but Duncan slowly, and then unexpectedly links, the two together and suddenly everything that has been said seems to click into place. It's always a delight when a performer has such a deep understanding of storytelling that they can surprise the audience with what transpires who are then able to look back at all that has happened and see how the pieces fit together.

Fran Solo - Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

You may think you know the story of Star Wars but Fran Middleton is here to tell you otherwise. With her trademark blend of absurdism and improvisation skills, Middleton is here to present her version of this intergalactic story in Fran Solo as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. 

Middleton is busy watching a film on her laptop and drinking a can of Solo – this show is full of puns - as we take our seats. Her laid back nature sets the tone for what we are to experience, and this is strengthened as she casually acknowledges each audience member with a nod and a greeting.

Top 10 Shows at the 2018 Melbourne Fringe Festival

Another Melbourne Fringe Festival comes to an end. Another three weeks of sheer madness of trying to squeeze in as many shows as possible also comes to an end. While there was a stumble towards the end, I managed to get to 58 shows again this year.
As usual, so many shows I wished I could have gone and seen, but hopefully these will come back in some way, shape or form in the future. 
But as usual, it's not a Melbourne Fringe Festival (for me anyway) without compiling a list of my top ten shows, so here it is.
If the show was reviewed, you will find a link next to its name.
Enjoy! 

Hopefully I'll be fully recovered and raring to go for 2019!

1. Bighouse Dreaming

It's been less than 48 hours since I saw this show and the more I think about it and the issues it raises the more affecting it has become. Written and performed by Declan Furber Gillick, Bighouse Dreaming covers so much material in 60 minutes but does so with insight, authenticity and emotion with its look at black and white masculinity in Australia, the justice and prison systems and also the helplessness that people who want to help often feel. 
There's an outrage in the piece that flows out into the audience and the brutal scene between Gillick and Ross Daniel's as a corrections officer is difficult to watch and hear.
Gillick, Daniels and third cast member Sahil Saluja, deliver some of the strongest work I have seen in an ensemble in their portrayals of various characters throughout the work. Mark Wilson's direction maintains the integrity and the intensity of the work while allowing time for the audience to articulate their thoughts on what is happening.
If you missed this during Fringe, I feel certain that it won't be long before we see it again on our stages because this is a show that needs to be seen on our stages again.

Honk Honk Honk Honk Honk - Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

Before you even take your seat, Tom Walker has already started his show where he invites audience members to play a computer game that he has created. One in which you play as Walker's head, welcoming every single audience member and the dreaded dark cloud that are reviewers, grab those five star reviews and battle your way through the audience to a glorious standing ovation. While the game could do with a bit of work, Honk Honk Honk Honk Honk is a winner, and everything you'd come to expect - or not expect - from Walker and his weirdly wonderful humour.

Walker's mind seems to operate at incredible speeds and there's barely a moment for us to register what's just happened before he ends an act, discards the prop and moves on the next one. Knives are literally thrown across the stage and the next act begins before the knife has even hit the floor. It keeps us engaged and adds elements of surprise and disbelief along the way.

Fafenefenoiby II: Return of the Ghost Boy - Melbourne International Comedy Festival preview

Every year, as the Melbourne International Comedy Festival approaches, I vehemently urge people go and see a Neal Portenza show. It's comedy like you've probably seen before, only much much better. Well this year will be the last year I will recommend him because Neal Portenza is hanging up his little red beret and performing his final ever show.

"The rumours are true. This will be my last live Neal Portenza show. I expect there will be a national day of mourning followed by a blood moon at the conclusion of the festival," the brains behind the beauty of Neal, Joshua Ladgrove tells me. For his final send-off, Ladgrove has named his show Fafenefenoiby II: Return of the Ghost Boy, a title that is slightly different to previous shows P.O.R.T.E.N.Z.A and Neal Portenza: Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza. Tracey, but equally as perplexing and random. "Fafenefenoiby is a Shaun Micallef reference. Hopefully he won’t sue me, but what wonderful publicity if he does. Audiences can expect a shell of a man performing his 22 last ever live shows with a mixture of genuine abandon and cavalier intimacy," he says.

Top 10 shows of 2017 Melbourne Fringe Festival

And so ends my favourite time of the year: the Melbourne International Fringe Festival. I'm constantly amazed by how many quality shows are put on during this time that challenge, entertain and surprise me. While I juggle full-time work and part-time study, I always make sure to block out my calendar for Fringe. 
After seeing a mere 58 shows, my top ten shows are presented below. There are so many shows I wish I had been able to get to but the fates were against us and I promise to make it to your next one.
If the show was reviewed, you will find a link next to its name for more thoughts and opinions. 
Enjoy! 
Can't wait to see what 2018 brings!

1. Cactus and the Mime - review 

A Cactus Mascot and a wannabe Mime decide to re-enact their relationship in the style of a children's show. What follows is a hysterical story of love and growing up that ends in heartbreak and looks at what happens when you are unable to move on when tragedy strikes.

Roby Favretto and Caitlin Spears as Trevor and Mandy have created a story that immediately draws you in, and one that finds just as much truth and honesty as it does with its humour and laughs. As the jokes become more vicious and personal, we begin to understand that there is something much darker lying underneath all this, something that Trevor and Mandy will ultimately end up facing head on.

There is also a blurring of performance and real life, which raises the question of how much performing do we do in our own lives and when are we authentic?
It's this blurring of themes and genres that Cactus and the Mime takes big gambles but it makes the work so much more impressive because of it.

TRAPS: a romantic comedy for the modern sociopath - Melbourne Fringe Festival review

Polly is a 400kg salt-water crocodile who loves to feed on cats and other small animals, and at the local veterinary clinic she has an abundance of small creatures at her disposal. But this isn't Polly's story. It's Joe's, the owner of the clinic but his assistant Stephanie will have you thinking it's hers. But then, maybe it's Julia's, the woman with a strong dislike for rats? One thing is for certain, it isn't the narrator's story. And so begins Amelia Evan's surreal TRAPS: A Romantic Comedy for the Modern Sociopath. 

The ensemble do exceptionally well with their characters and the material, where even though this is an absurdist play, they make it feel like this is the real deal. Marissa O'Reilly displays equal sensitivity and determination as the agitated veterinarian assistant Stephanie, and Charles Purcell is just as captivating as Julia, who becomes the unexpected owner of a chihuahua that won't stop arfing. Tom Dent as the narrator with no backstory or name is charismatic throughout with his futile attempts at becoming part of the story and Rachel Perks is simply marvellous as Joe, the vegetarian veterinarian psychopath who is in dire need of checking his male privilege.

Evans has written and directed a light-heartedly dark love story that raises a number of questions around oppression, domestic violence and feminism. While the plot is obviously far-fetched with fantastical characters, there is grounding in the work where Evans never loses sight of the issues she is bringing attention to. The gender-swapping roles of the actors playing Julie and Joe further add to this and it will be interesting to see how this changes - if at all - when Paul Blenheim steps into the role of Joe from Tuesday 26 September.

Let’s Get Practical! Live - Melbourne Fringe Festival review

Bonkers. Utterly bonkers is the only way to describe Let's Get Practical! Live. Presented by The Very Good Looking Initiative (which brought us last year's CULL), this show is absurdist humour at its core with the usual dose of high-octane energy that comes with a TVGLI production.

Australia's most popular late-night chat show Let's Get Practical! is being performed live for the very first time. Our host is the tanned, charismatic and seemingly confident Elliott Gee and along with his two audience warmers, Honor Wolff and Patrick Durnan Silva, they successfully work the crowd into a frenzy with promises of non-stop entertainment, games and guests.

But this is live television where you can't get a do over if something doesn't go according to plan, say for instance, if your host freaks out as soon as the cameras start recording and rushes backstage leaving the audience staring at an empty stage. I have never laughed so hard than as I have with what happens next and it is testament to Gee, Wolff and Durnan Silva's skill and awareness in what they are creating, and knowing not only what will get them laughs but also how to sustain the laughter. 

There are a few times where the comedy doesn't quite hit the mark - in concept and duration - but even in these instances it is fascinating to see how they continue to up the ante and being witness to what they have conceived. The uneasiness and uncertainty is accentuated by some impressive sound and lighting design by Tom Backhaus, and you begin to feel that you are in a Lynch-esque nightmare where the performers have taken too much acid - but all in a good way.

Neal Portenza review

What's in a name? It certainly doesn't matter in Joshua Ladgrove’s Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza. Tracey, but it is a clear indication of the type of show this is. It is 60 minutes of comedy that will have you snorting with laughter, squirming in your seat and wondering what goes on inside Neal Portenza’s – and Ladgrove’s - head, all at the same time.

As with his previous shows, this is a combination of scripted absurdist comedy with many opportunities for improvisation and off-the-cuff humour, with much of this born from Ladgrove's interactions with his audience. A running joke on the night I attended was based around two people working in the medical profession and Ladgrove attempting to explain things in medical terms so that they would understand.

Neal Portenza: Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza. Tracey - Melbourne International Comedy Festival preview

Neal Portenza: Catchy Show Title made it into my top ten shows of last year, and having seen 154 shows, it was quite a list. The show's absurdist comedy and ability to create hysterical situations out of the most mundane left quite an effect on me that had me laughing a whole lot longer than when it ended. Neal Portenza returns to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival this year with Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza Neal Portenza. Tracey. The name alone had me laughing out loud, literally, and is a clear indication of the type of show that audiences can expect.

"I’m happy you like the title of the show. I’m certain you’re in the overwhelming minority," explains the alter-ego of Neal Portenza, Joshua Ladgrove. "I sort of stopped giving up caring about things like show titles and posters and the mechanics of doing a festival show, so I thought this title reflects that attitude of ‘it’s all meant to be a joke anyway, so why take it so seriously?"