May 19th, 2012
Wilson Dixon discusses his show at the New Zealand International
Comedy Festival this year.
So tell us what your show is called this year?
Wilson Dixon Greatest Hits
Why?
The show is a selection of my greatest hits. Sure, they
might not be hits in the traditional sense, but they have all been
played on the local radio station in Cripple Creek Colorado – WKRT
Rocky Mountain Radio, “for all your up and down country hits as you
travel up and down through the Rockies.”
Can you give us a few hints as to what broadly your
festival show is about?
Broadly it’s music. Less broadly it’s country music, and
even less broadly, it’s country music written and sung by
me.
How much time have you spent crafting the show over the
past 12 months since the end of the last festival?
Not a single second of my time over the last 12 months
has gone into the show. The songs were all written between 12 and
144 months ago
The comedy festival is turning 20 this year what were you
doing 20 years ago?
Setting fire to my neighbors water tank. It was a
birthday prank that me and my brother Jethro were involved in. To
this day I’m amazed we managed to burn it down. It was wood, but it
was also full of water at the time.
The Comedy festival is all about the camaraderie too -
is there anyone you’re looking forward to seeing over here either
socially or on stage?
Craig Cambell. Even though he is Canadian, we always like
to met up at festivals lie this. He’s the only other person at the
festival that can talk meaningfully about bears for any length of
time.
What’s the comedy scene like at the moment – who do you
rate and why?
I’m not sure about the comedy scene. The country music scene on the
other hand …
We think comedy, we think Heckling so, best tip for dealing
with the hecklers? And has a heckler ever bested you?
Country music heckling often involves projectiles, so my
tip is to wear protective glasses and a strengthened stetson. One
time a burning couch was thrown onto the stage but I still managed
to finish the song
When we say New Zealand International Comedy Festival to
you, what’s the first thing you think of?
A comedy festival in NZ with an international flavor. Is
this a trick question?
How would you persuade people to come and see your
show?
I’d tell them they could win a spot prize of a pony ride
.
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May 19th, 2012
FAIRBANKS – Breaking into the comedy business is tough. Living in a small and remote town like Fairbanks, with its limited number of venues, doesn’t make it any easier, according to comedian Ryan Hughes.
“For awhile, I was trying to drive down to Anchorage to do shows, but a six-hour drive for 10 minutes of stage time wasn’t really worth it,” he said.
Hughes and other local comedians may be getting a break, though. The Boatel Sleazy Waterfront Bar is featuring Comedy Bumpkins, a showcase of local comedians on Sunday night. It’s a show that organizer Natalie Neubauer hopes will become a regular feature.
“There’s a lot of people interested in doing comedy, but there’s not a lot of places to do it,” she said.
Neubauer divides her time between Fairbanks and Los Angeles, where she frequented the comedy circuit. “I’m up here a lot of the time now and I just wanted to give local comics a place to work out their material and practice.”
The sets will be short, with each comedian having three to five minutes in the spotlight.
“I run a tight ship,” she said.
She is featuring mostly comedians who are just starting out, as well as some who have a few years under their belt, such as Hughes.
Hughes said he’s always been a class clown and that he got his start seven years ago at the annual Funny Fest organized by Fairbanks comedians and radio personalities Glenner Anderson and Jerry Evans. His adult-oriented comedy touches on current events and politics, and he likes to make fun of local radio and TV ads.
Hughes has opened a few comedy shows for Glenner and Jerry and performed at places like The Marlin, but otherwise he has had little luck getting his material heard.
“It’s kind of a tough town to do comedy,” he said, adding that he hopes the Boatel becomes a regular venue.
Other comedians expected to perform Sunday include Shannon Luster, Levi Ben-Israel, spoken word and National Poetry Slam performer Michael Shaeffer and Amy James.
Contact staff writer Julie Stricker at 459-7532.
IF YOU GO
What: Comedy Bumpkins
When: 7 p.m. Sunday
Where: Boatel Sleazy Waterfront Bar, 3368 Riverside Drive
Cost: No cover charge; 21 and older only
Info: 479-6537
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May 17th, 2012
Comedy singer-composer Ray Stevens performs a free, all-ages outdoor concert Saturday at Osage Casino, Sand Springs, located off Highway 412 at the 129th West Avenue exit.
Gates open 5 p.m., and guests are encouraged to bring their own lawn chairs. For more information, visit tulsaworld.com/osagecasino
Michael Todd’s Wild Frontier Band will open at 5:30 p.m., and the show goes on “rain or shine,” according to the venue’s official website.
Stevens is perhaps best known for his multimillion-selling comedy hit, “The Streak.” He’s also known for his socially aware “Mr. Businessman” as well as comedy tunes “The Mississippi Squirrel Revival,” “It’s Me Again Margaret,” “The Pirate Song,” “The Haircut Song” and “The Ballad of the Blue Cyclone.”
In 1970, his hit “Everything Is Beautiful” won a Grammy and became his first No. 1 hit on the pop charts.
In 2000, he released “Ray Stevens: Funniest Video Characters,” and his “Comedy Video Classics” has sold more than 2 million copies.
No outside coolers, food or drinks allowed.
Also, 3 p.m.-midnight on Saturday, Osage Casino, Sand Springs hosts free shuttle service every 15 minutes to and from the Walmart in Sand Springs for overflow parking.
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May 17th, 2012
NEW YORK — USA Network, which has found ratings success with its quirky dramas such as “White Collar,” “Necessary Roughness” and “Burn Notice,” is making an aggressive push into comedy.
The network is unveiling a slate of projects to advertisers Thursday during its upfront presentation that includes new shows produced by Kelsey Grammer and Denis Leary. The network is planning to have new sitcoms in its schedule next year and will use reruns of the ABC hit “Modern Family” as a promotional platform.
Among the sitcoms USA is developing are “Sirens” from Leary about jaded emergency medical technicians. For Leary, this is familiar ground. He starred and produced ABC’s underappreciated comedy “The Job” about New York detectives and the critically acclaimed “Rescue Me” on FX. “Sirens” will be lighter in tone than “Rescue Me” and more along lines of “The Job,” which was often described as a show better suited to cable than broadcast.
Also in the works is “The Dicicco Brothers” from Grammer, who will produce the sitcom about a dot-com entrepreneur who is struggling to make the cultural adjustment to Silicon Valley and gets little help from his unrefined family.
Looking to join the growing number of shows that feature a musical component (“Glee,” “Smash” and ABC’s new “Nashville,”) USA is also hoping to hit the right note with “Regulars” about a group of friends who blow off steam at a karaoke bar.
In addition, USA revealed new drama projects including “Bang Bang” about rival hitmen who decide to become partners; “Rare,” about a trendy restaurant whose chef had a secret life as a member of the military, and a show from “Law & Order” creator Dick Wolf about an insurance investigator whose new trophy wife is a man.
On the reality front, USA confirmed plans to go ahead with its version of a reality show about weddings. However, “Bride or Best Man” is actually about what happens when the men plan the big day.
RELATED:
TNT gets more reality, TBS looks for laughs
Take a look at CBS’s new dramas
— Joe Flint
Photo: Denis Leary. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times
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May 15th, 2012
CANNES, France (Reuters) – Comedy will dominate the opening of the Cannes film festival on Wednesday, with Wes Anderson‘s child fantasy “Moonrise Kingdom” in a tussle with Sacha Baron Cohen‘s anarchic alter ego General Aladeen for the attention of the world’s media.
Thousands of journalists and movie executives are in the glamorous Riviera resort for 12 hectic days of screenings, red carpets, parties and dealmaking, and the first day is typical of the diary clashes they face.
Anderson’s film, starring Bruce Willis and Bill Murray, is the official opening entry in the main competition, ensuring a splashy launch with a press screening, news briefing, interviews and red carpet gala premiere on Wednesday evening.
Yet just a short stroll away along the famous palm-lined Croisette waterfront, Baron Cohen will also be muscling in on the action with a press conference of his own at the swanky Carlton Hotel to promote his latest picture “The Dictator”.
Judging by his outrageous sense of humor and eye for the theatrical, the British comic may steal much of the limelight as he adopts the character of Aladeen, a cruel North African dictator partly inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings.
Amid the pranks and late night parties, however, there is plenty of hard work to be done, with a giant marketplace showcasing hundreds of films and hoping to defy the economic gloom across much of Europe with a spate of sales.
“The economic situation in Europe is not great, but does it mean that we have to forget the dream?” said Thierry Fremaux, general delegate of the festival. “The (economic) crisis is not the crisis of this year,” he told Reuters.
“It has been five years that we are in crisis here in Europe,” he added, speaking in English. “But we have to manage a way to give the people dreams and to say that even in the 1930s after the big crisis, cinema was in very good shape.”
RISING STARS IN SPOTLIGHT
Along the Croisette, last-minute preparations were underway on Tuesday as beach pavilions stocked up with champagne and lobster, promotional posters went up and stages were erected.
Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman are among established Hollywood names expected to grace the red carpet, where they will be joined by a long list of rising stars hoping to make their mark.
Cannes, as the world’s biggest and most glamorous film festival, is an ideal platform for a movie and its cast. Silent hit “The Artist”, which went on to sweep the Oscars, launched here last year.
But notoriously picky critics can also make life awkward for directors and actors, as with the 2006 world premiere of “The Da Vinci Code” which received poor reviews.
While grumpy cinephiles is an integral part of Cannes, organizers will be keen to avoid a repeat of last year when maverick director Lars Von Trier was controversially expelled for making jokes about Nazis at a press conference.
This year, the festival has come under fire for not including a single female director in its main competition lineup after four were selected in 2011. It has defended its decision, saying it would not impose a “quota policy”.
Despite the row, media reaction to this year’s lineup has been generally positive.
In the main competition of 22 films, Brazilian director Walter Salles’ adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s novel “On the Road” has generated plenty of buzz, not least because “Twilight” actress Kristen Stewart takes on a leading role.
Best known as Bella Swan from the vampire blockbusters, the 22-year-old American will be joined on the sun-kissed French Riviera by Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson.
The British actor appears in another competition movie “Cosmopolis”, directed by Canada’s David Cronenberg, a topical tale of corporate greed that follows a successful New York financier whose world disintegrates around him.
John Hillcoat’s movie “Lawless”, a Depression-era gangster tale, features Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain, Shia LaBeouf and Mia Wasikowska among others, underlining the importance of fresh acting talent at this year’s festival.
Previous winners of the coveted Palme d’Or prize for best film who are in contention again are Austria’s Michael Haneke with “Amour” (Love), Iran’s Abbas Kiarostami (“Like Someone In Love”), Briton Ken Loach (“The Angels’ Share”) and Romanian Cristian Mungiu (“Beyond the Hills”).
Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey and Kidman all star in Lee Daniels’ “The Paperboy” and Pitt appears in Andrew Dominik’s “Killing Them Softly”.
Hot topics on the big screen include the Arab uprisings, with Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah’s “After the Battle” in competition, and the pitfalls of celebrity culture in “Antiviral”, the debut feature from Cronenberg’s son Brandon.
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May 15th, 2012
ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J., May 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ – Who knew a hilarious response to “What would you do for a Klondike® bar?” could result in Twitter fame. Klondike®, the makers of Klondike® bars, sandwiches and Choco Taco, has launched the Klondike® Comedy Showcase, a Twitter joke competition hosted by stand-up comedian and Twitter phenom Rob Delaney to recognize and reward today’s top comedic talent on Twitter.
To view the multimedia assets associated with this release, please click http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/if-comedy-is-your-flavor-and-variety-is-your-spice-of-life-rob-delaney-and-klondike-have-everything-you-need-this-summer-151470285.html
Starting today, people can follow @Klondikebar to participate in the brand’s weekly joke contest. The Klondike® Comedy Showcase encourages Twitter users to demonstrate their originality, wit and sense of humor for a chance to win shout-outs from Rob Delaney (to his more than 410,000 Twitter followers) and prizes, including a VIP trip to the New York Comedy Festival in November.
“I’ll be the first to admit that I have a unique, oftentimes downright weird sense of humor, so it was refreshing to be approached by a brand that wants to be involved in the comedic subculture of Twitter,” Rob Delaney said. “I’m extremely passionate about two things – food and comedy – and Klondike brings both of these worlds together in a fun and entertaining way with the Klondike Comedy Showcase.”
To enter the Klondike® Comedy Showcase, simply follow @Klondikebar on Twitter to be linked to the contest leaderboard, and sign in by linking your Twitter account. From there, watch Rob’s videos and respond to the weekly joke topics/challenges using the #KCS hashtag in your tweet submission.
Weekly winners will be announced at the end of each week for ten weeks, starting May 15. Top entries will be featured on the contest leaderboard. As host of the competition, Rob Delaney will provide random video commentary and weekly winner shout-outs to his Twitter followers. The ten weekly winners will then go head-to-head in a final tweet “joke-off” to determine the grand-prize winner. Jokes will be judged on the online community’s votes, entertainment value, relation to the joke topic and overall Klondike® brand approval.
“Klondike is all about celebrating variety and originality – in ice cream and comedy,” Mike Hurley, senior brand building manager for Klondike®, said. “We partnered with Rob Delaney to create the Klondike Comedy Showcase to recognize up-and-coming comedians who are sharing hilarious, original one-liners and tokens of observational humor in the Twitterverse.”
In addition to the Klondike® Comedy Showcase, Klondike® is launching several new product varieties this summer. Following the successful launch of the Original Choco Taco multipack last year, Klondike® is introducing two new Choco Taco multipack varieties:
- Klondike® Choco Taco Chocolate features chocolate light ice cream* in a sugar taco with dark chocolate flavored coating and crispy rice.
- Klondike® Choco Taco Peanut Butter features peanut butter flavored light ice cream* with a peanut buttery swirl in a sugar taco with milk chocolate flavored coating.
Expanding on its popular line of ice cream sandwiches, Klondike® is also introducing the Chocolate Ice Cream Sandwich, which features artificially flavored chocolate light ice cream* between two chocolate wafers. Other Klondike® sandwich flavors include Vanilla, OREO®, Mrs. Fields® Chocolate Chip and What the Fudge? Brownie.
Klondike® currently has 11 unique stickless bar varieties, including: The Original, HEATH®, Krunch™, REESE’S®, Dark Chocolate, Mint Chocolate Chip, OREO®, Double Chocolate, Caramel Pretzel, Rocky Road and Neapolitan.
For more product information, please visit www.Klondikebar.com.
*Not a light food
Contest Abbreviated Rules
No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. The Klondike® Comedy Showcase is sponsored by Conopco, Inc., d/b/a Unilever. Open to legal residents of the 50 U.S. & D.C., 18 & older. Begins 10:00 a.m. ET on May 15, 2012, and ends 11:59 p.m. ET on July 23, 2012. For Official Rules, visit @Klondikebar on Twitter.com.
About Klondike®
The original Klondike® bar was handmade in the early 1900s by dipping square slices of ice cream into pans of rich, delicious milk chocolate. Until the 1970s, the Klondike® bar was sold only in Pennsylvania and Ohio. In 1978, distribution expanded into Florida, followed by New York and New England. Today, millions of Americans have come to love the Klondike® bar’s delicious variety of frozen novelty products with the distinctive silver wrapper, square shape and famous chocolaty coating. The “What would you do for a Klondike bar?” advertising slogan has become an American icon and commonly referenced in pop culture. Klondike® bars remain top selling novelties in the ice cream category. For more information on Klondike® products and store locators, visit www.Klondikebar.com.
About Unilever North America
Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of fast moving consumer goods with strong operations in more than 100 countries and sales in 180. With products that are used over two billion times a day around the world, we work to create a better future every day and help people feel good, look good and get more out of life with brands and services that are good for them and good for others. In the United States and Canada the portfolio includes brand icons such as: Axe, Becel, Ben & Jerry’s, Bertolli, Breyers, Caress, Consort For Men, Country Crock, Degree, Dove personal care products, fds, Good Humor, Hellmann’s, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!, Just for Me!, Klondike, Knorr, Lever 2000, Lipton, Motions, Nexxus, Noxzema, Pond’s, Popsicle, Promise, Q-Tips, Ragu, Simple, Skippy, Slim-Fast, Soft & Beautiful, St. Ives, Suave, tcb, TIGI, TRESemme, Vaseline, and Wish-Bone. All of the preceding brand names are registered trademarks of the Unilever Group of Companies. Dedicated to serving consumers and the communities where we live, work and play, Unilever employs more than 13,000 people across North America – generating over $9 billion in sales in 2011. For more information, visit www.unileverusa.com or www.unilever.ca.
For more information or images, please contact:
Zachary Crantz
GolinHarris
708-772-1180
zcrantz@golinharris.com
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May 13th, 2012
Perth International Comedy Festival
Hannah Gadsby, Brendon Burns, Bonnie Davies, Andrea Gibbs and Neil Hamburger
Mt Lawley Bowling Club
I’ve spent a lot of time at the gloriously art deco Mt Lawley Bowling Club, but I’ve never come across anyone even remotely like Neil Hamburger. More of him later.
The rampaging Perth International Comedy Festival has created two performance areas, the Jack High Room and the Laughter Locker, at the club, with its bar and lounge between. Unlike the much larger festival venue at the nearby Astor Theatre, you do get the chance to hang out, have a few (un-Perthly cheap) drinks and meet the performers.
In the Laughter Locker, two rising Perth comics got their chance to slug it out with the visiting bigshots.
Bonnie Davies’ memoir of an unconventional upbringing in a halfway house for at-risk individuals made up for what it sometimes lacked in comic chutzpah with heartfelt emotion.
Andrea Gibbs is a more experienced and assured performer, and her stories of childhood and adolescence in Donnybrook were savvy and charming. It’s clear she was a remarkably self-possessed kid, and that easy confidence hasn’t deserted her as a comedian.
First cab off the rank in the Jack High Room was Hannah Gadsby, the Tasmanian lesbian art historian comedian whose thesis, anchored on Jan van Eyck’s enigmatic Arnolfini Portrait (1434), about marriage, body image and life on the outside, was as erudite as it was funny.
The homecoming comic, Brendon Burns, had me worried we were in for aggressive big-swinging-dick comedy in the first minutes of his act. It wasn’t long, though, before we realised he had something much sharper and humane going on. Shannon Harvey’s review in The West last week provided all the details.
Which brings us to Hamburger. He’s Jack Benny reborn as a monster – vituperative, brutal and uncaring. Celebrity, and the whole construct of comedy, is his target, and he goes at it with unbridled venom and an obscenity that is almost hallucinatory. I don’t dare tell you, here, the answers to questions like “What do you get when you cross Sir Elton John with a sabre-toothed tiger?” or “Why did Madonna feed her adopted child dog food?”, but I’m told by people at the back of the room that they had me in convulsions. It’s true, but it was with a foetal-positioned, “Oh Lord, did he really say that?” sort of laughter. He got heckled, and threw a drink over the offender. Quite a lot of people left. He’s either a genius or a madman, but, either way, utterly memorable.
Comedy at the Mt Lawley Bowling Club continues from Wednesday to Saturday this week with Dave Callan, Greg Fleet, Glenn Wool, Werzel Montague and Laura Davis. There are already some sell-outs, other shows will fill fast, and I mentioned the price of drinks already.
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May 13th, 2012
Carol Oviedo: “I have never felt like that before. It’s terrifying and exhilarating. I love it.”
Matt Smith: “You’ve never had a good time ’til you sat around drinking with a table full of comedians.”
Myke Herlihy: “The whole secret to this business is to be nice to everyone.”
Need a laugh?
These locations offer live comedy on the Treasure Coast:
Port St. Lucie Civic Center: 9221 S.E. Civic Center Place, Port St. Lucie. 772-807-4488. Groucho’s. Second and fourth Saturdays.
The Refuge: 2196 S.E. Ocean Drive, Stuart. 772-600-7470. CNS Comedy. Fridays.
Riverside Cafe: 3341 Bridge Plaza Drive, Vero Beach, 772-234-5550. Groucho’s. Every other Thursday.
Sunrise Black Box Theatre: 117 S. Second St., Fort Pierce. 772-461-4884. Comedy Corner. Second and fourth Saturdays.
60 Proof: 338 Port St. Lucie Blvd., Port St. Lucie, 772-344-3213. Laugh-a-palooza. Call for dates.
For more information on live comedy on the Treasure Coast check www.CNSComedy.com or on Facebook Casey N SpazComedy and www.GrouchosComedy.com.
Photo by Grayson Hoffman
GRAYSON HOFFMAN/SPECIAL TO TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS
Casey Peruski performs his comedy routine April 14 during the Comedy Corner in the Sunrise Theatre’s Black Box in Fort Pierce. Peruski also is a producer and host of the Comedy Corner show.
Photo by Grayson Hoffman
GRAYSON HOFFMAN/SPECIAL TO TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS
Featured comedian Myke Herlihy holds a flaming wallet as part of his stand-up act April 14 during the Comedy Corner in the Black Box at the Sunrise Theatre in Fort Pierce. Herlihy was raised in Port St. Lucie.
Some funny Treasure Coast residents are building the comedy scene here — five minutes at a time.
When he saw people lining up to see “Smokey and the Bandit Part II,” Larry Silver of Groucho Productions Inc. realized people were starved for comedy. He has been producing live comedy shows on the Treasure Coast since 1986. He started out at the old Howard Johnson’s in Stuart, booking professional comedians, including Larry the Cable Guy, when he was just Dan Whitney, the Freight Train of Comedy.
Although Silver still produces shows at various locations, he no longer offers open mic opportunities to amateurs because would-be comics may bomb and one bad act can keep people from coming back.
“It’s hard enough to fill the house these days,” Silver said.
But Casey N Spaz Comedy are on a mission to fill the amateur void. CNS Comedy is the team of Casey Peruski, 32, of Jensen Beach and his uncle, Michael “Spaz” McGoorty, 55, of Port St. Lucie. Since 2008, they have been hosting open mic nights and producing comedy shows, offering open mic opportunities before or after the headlining acts.
Anyone can try and everyone who does gets five minutes to make the crowd laugh. The best comics earn spots in front of a subsequent show or a paid position on another show. Peruski often sacrifices his own stage time for beginner comics.
“You can practice in front of a mirror all you want,” Peruski said, “but you need time in front of a live crowd to get better.”
Local amateurs Matt Smith and Carol Oviedo have taken advantage of the opportunity and providing laughter has helped them through some tough times.
Smith, 29, of Fort Pierce, was unemployed and feeling down as he sat in the audience of the open mic shows. Smith says it was Peruski’s support and a receptive local crowd that finally gave him the courage to try stand-up after two years of watching. Smith recently performed at the Sunrise Black Box Theatre.
Meanwhile, performing stand-up was an unchecked bucket list item for Oviedo, 60, of Port St. Lucie. When her marriage of 34 years ended, she was struggling. She credits Casey and McGoorty for providing the encouragement, confidence and opportunity she needed to finally try stand-up.
“I don’t want to sound dramatic but it’s almost like this has saved my life,” Oviedo said.
That was two years ago. Now, the comedian performs weekly.
Another local amateur, Myke Herlihy of Port St. Lucie, has turned professional.
Herlihy began in 2006 at open mic nights at a now-closed coffee shop in Port St. Lucie.The 35-year-old moved in 2008 to Orlando, where the comedy scene is larger and air travel is more convenient, to try to make comedy a career. He has opened for Louie Anderson, Alonzo Bodden and Gallagher.
“When I started out I didn’t think I would actually make money doing it. The fact that I make a living doing it now shocks everybody, including myself,” Herlihy says. “Every time I get paid to tell jokes, I feel blessed.”
Herlihy still looks forward to coming home to the Treasure Coast to perform. He recently headlined at Sunrise Theatre’s Black Box.
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May 11th, 2012
Perth Comedy Festival
Lawrence Mooney
Astor Lounge, Mt Lawley
The loose premise of Lawrence Mooney’s An Indecisive Bag of Donuts is his struggle with procrastination and the writing of his show. Psychologists define procrastination as a fear of failure, which is gloriously ironic given the comic has produced a gut-busting comedic triumph.
It’s easy to see why Donuts snagged the Best Comedy Award at the 2011 Melbourne Fringe Festival. It works from start to finish, from the doona-cocooned performer’s sleepy mumblings at daybreak to a disturbingly graphic description of kinky bogan role-playing as the sun sets over the backyard. He’s a cheeky one, our Lawrence.
The narrative is pitch-perfect, providing a neat framework for an unceasing stream of jokes, observations and laments on day-to-day life in suburbia. While cleaning, walking the dog and traipsing around the mall don’t sound like comic gold, Mooney wields a sharp eye for the quirks of human nature. If you’ve ever felt stupid yet sophisticated choosing wine or used the third person when someone knocks on your toilet stall, this is the show for you.
As the lights came up, he invited the audience to give themselves a round of applause, which was richly deserved. A mix of young and old, everyone had come for a laugh, something Mooney obviously appreciated. From the wry twinkle in his eye, he appeared to have had as good a time doing the hard yards on stage as those parked on their bottoms.
All of which leaves one question begging to be answered: why is An Indecisive Bag of Donuts playing in the Astor Lounge? Given the buzz it is guaranteed to produce, I suspect Mooney will command the main stage next year, and quite rightly… provided he gets around to writing a new show in time.
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May 11th, 2012
Perth Comedy Festival
Jimmy James Eaton
The Velvet Lounge, Mt Lawley
If Jimmy James Eaton ever decided to become a serious actor, he’d likely do well. He has some stage presence and inhabits a range of characters with intensity. He also has a knack for voices. If you happen to be the comic, his friend or a member of his family, you might want to put those words in your back pocket and stop reading now.
What is baffling is why One Small Sketch for Man is part of the Perth International Comedy Festival when it so fails to conform to the traditional notion of comedy, namely making people laugh. The show’s marketing describes Eaton as a “comedy alchemist”, which given alchemists never managed to turn lead into gold, now strikes me as some sort of clever, coded Freemason warning.
But I took the comp tickets and there’s a small square of blank newsprint waiting for this review, so let’s press on.
The show was a series of sketches, starting with an extended bit of mime, which everyone loves. Eaton made some beeping sounds and appeared to pick up a space rock (or something) and then got hungry, made a sad face and drove off in his imaginary space car. Some might say this seven-minute sequence was enough, but he revisited the scene halfway through the show. I know it was halfway, because I was checking my watch.
There was more mime, this time involving a sneezing window cleaner, and a scene with a mutant travel agent. I finished my beer and Eaton licked some imaginary rain and pretended to ride a donkey. I thought about my day tomorrow and remembered I needed to iron a shirt.
On the plus side, the show ended 15 minutes earlier than expected.
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