When I Grow Up... review (Melbourne International Comedy Festival)

It's the age-old question: what do you want to be when you grow up? As a child, you might say doctor, teacher, police officer...but then there's also the kids that want to be famous, a rock star, an athlete or even a penguin. In Jeromaia Detto's comedy show When I Grow Up..., audience suggestions of what they wanted to be when they were children are played out on stage in an improvised hour of laughter.

It's evident from the second Detto appears in the room, he's here for a good time and that joy and sense of play spreads throughout the room. He's very talented at guiding the audience and letting them know what to do without putting them on the spot or placing any pressure on them. You're never uncertain of what your role is, and even if you are, Detto will find a way of incorporating that into the scene.

Jon & Jero: Improv Narrated By Comedians review (Melbourne Fringe Festival)

In Improv Narrated By Comedians, improvisers Jon Walpole and Jeromaia Detto have a guest comedian on stage who via different improv games, narrates stories for them to perform. They have brought together a variety of guests including Virginia Gay and Nat Harris and on the night we attended, we were graced with the presence of the wonderful stand-up comedian Anna Piper Scott.  

Piper Scott and Detto have individually been reviewed by My Melbourne Arts and they are both talented and funny performers but in this format, on this night, along with Walpole, the elements did not come together with many golden rules of improv either not followed or present.

Outer Child review (Melbourne International Comedy Festival)

As adults we often forget what life was like when we were children and the freedom that came with being a child and not being jaded, worried, cynical or anxious about life. In Outer Child, Ashley Apap takes her audiences on a self-help journey of discovery about repair, understanding and self-compassion.

Apap plays a no-nonsense life coach, whom we have paid a lot of money for this six step program to learn from. She's so focused on this journey that she won't even accept any form of applause when she appears on stage. Everything seems to be going well(ish) until she has an IBS attack which results in Apap's inner child becoming free with the older Apap now trapped inside a hydroflask.

Lolly Bag review (Melbourne International Comedy Festival)

Returning to the comedy festival with Lolly Bag, Hannah Camilleri presents a variety of sketches with some new and some returning but beloved characters. This mixed bag once again highlights Camilleri's ability to draw you into this make-believe world with relatable situations where you may very well have interacted with these types of people in your real life.

Camilleri is a chameleon when it comes to transforming into these people. She is unrecognisable from one to the next with just a simple wig or prop. Her physical changes as she goes from sketch to sketch are nuanced and well crafted, particularly with the opening act of a mechanic tending to a customer. It is a stereotype of mechanics but she also gives him his own distinct personality and idiosyncrasies that makes him completely and utterly believable. Camilleri clearly has a strong affection for her creations.

The tribe has improvised in Completely Improvised Survivor

31 May 2000. It was the day the reality TV world landscape changed forever with the premiere of Survivor, where a group of strangers battle it out as tribes and as individuals to outwit, outplay and outlast everyone else and become the sole survivor and winner of a million dollars.

Fast-forward 22 years and there's a new player in town with Completely Improvised Survivor. Created by Melissa McGlensey and Douglas Wilson, each night audiences are witnesses to a tribal council with flashbacks to events that have happened between the players. As the title states, this is all improvised and made up on the spot so the audience and the cast are never quite sure what they are going to get.

"Each show is the finale "episode" of a fictional season of Survivor. The players mould their characters on the spot based on audience suggestions and then perform a "previously on" montage, which fills in the backstory for the full season. Then they go on and play out the remaining immunity challenge, tribal council, etc, all while building on top of the backstory they just invented," McGlensey explains.

Ancient Shrines and Half Truths - Melbourne Fringe Festival review

Presented by Binge Culture, Ancient Shrines and Half Truths is an outdoor audio experience that has participants listening to a narrator as they uncover the unheard and the forgotten history that surrounds them, in this instance, Werribee. Armed with an iPhone, headphones and an app, the tour is divided into four parts, with each part becoming more and more immersive and interactive until you reach its joyous conclusion.

From discovering the secret voices in post boxes, the animals that live by my feet and haggling for a coffee with a tree, every pit stop throughout draws me into a silly world that is treated with a sincerity and respect. By doing so, I start to see things that I would not have noticed before. At one point I am told that in order to blend in with the locals I should walk with a hand on my hip and the other swinging while I walk. No sooner do I adapt to this specific way of moving, that I witness a man coming towards me, walking just like me. We share a nod and smile and I wonder as he continues on his way if he was a local or a plant, but I guess I'll never know.

The Pageant - Melbourne Fringe Festival review

It's the beauty pageant to end all beauty pageants. All the nerves, stressing, tears, arguments and tantrums from parents has culminated to this moment. Will their child win the crown? In The Pageant, creators and performers Patrick Dwyer and Laura Trenerry (one third of The Travelling Sisters), reveal the glitz and glamour of the high stakes world of pageantry, with a little help from the rest of the room. 

Dwyer is in his element as former pageant darling Victoria Beavoir, capturing the insecurities of this bombshell as she exudes a public image of flirtatious and frisky behaviours. Trenerry as Victoria's long-term devotee Roger Seahorse brings in her long-history of male impersonations from her Travelling Sisters performances to present this nervous and geeky man as an absolutely charming and loveable co-host. 

There is a lot of audience participation in this show and while many people are generally petrified of being invited to come up on stage for any purpose, Dwyer and Trenerry ensure that their "volunteers" are well looked after. On the night I attended every single person called up was well prepared with what to do and more than enjoyed their time in the spotlight, and it wouldn't be surprising if there were plenty of disappointed faces in the crowd who were not brought up.

Murder Village: An Improvised Whodunnit - Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

After killing it at Melbourne Fringe Festival last year, the residents of Murder Village have returned to Melbourne for another season of murder most improvised. Presented by Dave Massingham, the premise of Murder Village is simple but incredibly effective; one where the audience individually vote for who they would like to see die and who should be their killer. After that, it's up to our improvisers to make the story come to life while keeping us guessing who the two shall be. It's all rather quite dramatic.

Amberly Cull, who plays village sleuth Jemima Marmalade, has been left in the dark as to who the killer is, and alongside Detective Inspector Own Slugget (Massingham), she interrogates all the suspects before gathering them together and confirming if she has unmasked the murderer or lynched an innocent person. The scenes between these two law-abiding citizens are a great example that these "people" are not stereotypes but characters with history and convictions, who just happen to be heightened versions of themselves.

At The Movies - Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

Going to the movies during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival can almost be considered sacrilege but Impro Melbourne have found a way to let the people have their cake and eat it too with At The Movies. Completely made up on the spot, the show is created from the first five minutes of a B-grade movie that no one in the cast has seen until that moment.

Our "director" Sarah Kinsella provides us with the synopsis of two movies in which to choose from and based on an audience vote, the favourite is picked and we watch the opening scenes. In this instance, it is the 1985 film Desert Hearts, in which a New York professor divorces her husband and has an affair with another woman in Reno, 1959.

Murder Village: An Improvised Whodunnit - Melbourne International Comedy Festival preview

We all enjoy a heartwarming murder mystery. Trying to spot the clues as they are laid out for us, or in some cases watching as the detective pieces everything together, can be a thrilling adventure. As part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, audiences have the opportunity to commit their own slice of murder with an improvised homage to Agatha Christie in Murder Village: An Improvised Whodunnit, a show presented by Dave Massingham and the iconic The Butterfly Club.

Massingham's love for the perfect murder stemmed from a childhood of watching them enacted on stage, TV and in board games. "Ever since I was a kid I loved the cozy murder mystery. Agatha Christie was a perennial favourite. Cluedo was always my preferred board game. I even remember watching episodes of Inspector Morse and Jonathan Creek with my family," he recalls. "When I became interested in improv comedy I knew that I would love to one day develop a classic British whodunnit format. In 2009 I came up with a show structure called Agatha Holmes and put it on with my old Brisbane improv troupe ImproMafia. That would be the bones that would eventually become Murder Village."

At The Movies - Melbourne International Comedy Festival preview

With all the chatter about the upcoming Academy Awards, let's spare a thought for the films that could only ever dream of even being considered. During the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Impro Melbourne are doing just that with At The Movies. The group of highly skilled improvisers are bringing out their own Hollywood magic with audience members determining which B-grade movie they would like to see acted out. The catch is, the improvisers have never heard of the film and will only get to watch the first five minutes of it before taking over.

Director of At The Movies and ensemble member of Impro Melbourne Sarah Kinsella has previously performed this with Montreal Improv (who co-developed it with Vancouver’s Little Mountain Improv) and she is thrilled to be presenting it to Melbourne audiences. "I played this format at the Montreal Improv Festival and I had such a great time. It has a structure that is easy for the Improviser to jump into playing and for the audience to understand," she says. "Explaining how improv works is often difficult, particularly if it's a complicated format but this one is incredibly simple and hilarious."

Whine List - Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

There are comedy shows that are remembered for their extravagant set pieces, others for their energetic performances and others for the splattering of jokes that are churned out each second. And then there is Marcel Lucont's Whine List, a show with the most minimal of sets, lowest of energy and more despair out loud than laughs out loud. But it is a show where this kind of approach works in its favour.

Drinking his bottle of red wine and wearing a blue suit, the barefooted Frenchman exudes the confidence and arrogance that stereotypes are made of. He cares little of what we think of him and cares even less about us. He's here to basically make us feel a little bit shit about our lives and ourselves.

The Big HOO-HAA! - Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

The Big HOO HAA! has been one of Melbourne' leading improv groups for eight years. In that time, the troupe has consistently sold out its regular weekly shows that are completely created from audience suggestions. For this year's Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the group returns for their usual late night improvised tomfoolery that pits The Bones against The Hearts in the fiercest battle that improv has ever seen.

The show has its two three-player teams - Greg Lavell, Anna Renzenbrink and Jaron Why in one team and Elly Squire, Isabella Valette and Luke Ryan in another, on the evening I attended - battling it out to see who will be victorious in this improv death match. The beauty of improv is that the audience and the improvisers never know what is going to transpire and it is simultaneously liberating and petrifying for both sides knowing that anything can happen on stage.

Franny Pack - Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

Walking into Fran Middleton's comedy show you don't really know what to expect. Walking out of Fran Middleton's comedy show, you don't really know what you've just experienced. But whatever it is, it works perfectly. The fact that Middleton can draw the audience into her bizarre world simply by reclining on a black box wearing white shorts with huge coffee stains on the crotch is a testament to her skill as a performer, comedian and improviser.

Franny Pack is deeply rooted in absurdism and if absurdism could be a person, it would be this character that Middelton has created. To specifically mention what happens in the show would ruin the delights that are to be uncovered, but Middleton has a knack for taking one idea or object, such as a pair of coffee stained shorts, and unpacking it in every conceivable way to get maximum usage and laughs out of it, before putting it away. Her facial expressions and physicality remain expressive throughout the show and seeing her react to unexpected audience interactions is a joy.

Mummy - Melbourne Fringe Festival review

Mummy Num Nums is a name you'll never forget after this Melbourne Fringe Festival experience. The Hollywood starlet has had an illustrious career as long as both your arms put together. Her wide range of movie sequels to sequels include Dunston Checks in 4: Dunston Checks Out but her career has somewhat stagnated, so Mummy is on a mission to reclaim her place back on top of the Hollywood food chain, but first she has to contend with Bette bloody Midler. 

The eponymous star of Mummy: A Sexy Comedy Party is played to dazzling perfection by Brianna Williams in this part sketch comedy, part improvised show. Williams has a commanding presence on stage and knows how to charm an audience. She is at total ease with her character and is clearly having a lot of fun with her.

To help Mummy get her career back on track however, she has enlisted some well known - to her anyway - people to come and chat to her. Each performance of Mummy: A Sexy Comedy Party has three different performers and on this evening, I was fortunate enough to have Sarah Reuben, Martin Dunlop and Aunty Donna's Broden Kelly. Unlike the introduction to the show, these interactions are completely improvised and it's always fun for an audience member to see performers lost for words and unable to contain their laughter on stage.

P.O.R.T.E.N.Z.A review - Melbourne International Comedy Festival

P.O.R.T.E.N.Z.A. Neal Portenza. The name should strike fear into anyone who does not like audience participation, because once Neal has you in his sights there's no point fighting it. Even sitting in the back of the room will not save you as Neal roams up and down just waiting for something to happen. A sneeze, a phone ringing and even a velcro strap will set Neal off on a tangent that is completely improvised but incredibly hilarious.

Neal is the creation of Josh Ladgrove - who makes sure we know that he has two degrees from the University of Melbourne, making him smarter than us in every way - and the character is the embodiment of what laughter and good times are. There is a huge sense of fun during the entire show, taking inspiration from the mundane, the silly and the downright absurd. It would certainly be an experience to be able to see the world through Ladgrove's and / or Portenza's point of view.

P.O.R.T.E.N.Z.A - Melbourne International Comedy Festival preview

Neal Portenza is a name that anyone who has an interest in comedy should know. The creation of comedian Joshua Ladgrove, Neal Portenza is about as absurdly bizarre and hilarious as they get. The character returns to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival with a new show simply called P.O.R.T.E.N.Z.A. As with previous shows, you may read the show description and be entertained but utterly baffled by what it is actually about or you can try read between the lines...and then let Ladgrove know.

"The show is in a pre-embryonic state as of right now (20 February 2017) and so I can’t tell you what it's about with any degree of certainty," he says. "What I can say though, is that I want this show to be different from my previous outings, but to still retain all the elements of live comedy that I love. Chiefly, visceral, whole body laughter, stupidity, cleverness, characters, chaos, danger and fun. So, I suppose, going on past shows, the audience can expect a show that is very live and alive, and a bit different from night to night. I love involving the audience in a way that’s particular to that evening, but not in a hacky sort of way."

The Sparrow Men - Midsumma preview

From humble beginnings in July 2014 to now being a Premier Event at the 2017 Midsumma Festival, The Sparrow Men - aka. Andy Balloch and Marcus Willis - have garnered a reputation as one of Melbourne's most esteemed improv acts. The two have been performing regularly with no script, no direction and no idea on what is going to come out of their mouths for 2 and a half years and could not be more excited to be returning to the festival where they debuted their first full-length performance in 2015.

"Improv is such an incredible art form, and the only one where the process is the actual product. Every night we get to write, direct and star in our own play. And like plays, they can be funny, sad, dramatic, absurd, linear, non-linear, thematic based, premise driven, tackle important issues, non-important issues, it can be meta, non-meta, interactive, non-interactive, in English or not in English. We can play humans, birds, or anything in-between, play 1 character each, or 20, maybe there’s a narrator, maybe not," Balloch tells me.

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?"