Op Shop Tour, March 31, 2012 **

From Melbourne Town Hall
Sats March 31, April 7, 14, 21, 2012

Reviewed by Joe Calleri

Stars: **

Published in Herald Sun online on April 1, 2012

If your idea of heaven on a stick is to seek elusive pre-loved bargains in Melbourne’s opportunity shops, then this unusual shopping tour is a must do.

Other companies provide shopping tours for bargain hunters, but this tour provides you with an MC, and guest comedians to entertain you on the bus while you travel from op shop to op shop.

MC Jo is lively and engaging for a Saturday morning, regaling you with her rendition of Shirley Bassey’s History Repeating. You will visit five op shops and return to Melbourne Town Hall by 1.30pm.

The particular tour reviewed was attended almost exclusively by women in their twenties and older. This reviewer and three token guys, including bus driver John, completed the numbers.

The actual shopping experience was the least interesting and engaging part of the tour.

At four hours duration, including a stop for morning tea, this tour is an endurance event, so veteran bargain hunters only should sign on. Since most of the guests on the tour reviewed appeared to be serious shoppers, you might also want to bring a pal along for company.

By Joe Calleri

Mike Wilmot, March 31, 2012 **

Mike Wilmot

Banquet Room, the Victoria Hotel, Collins St, until April 22, 2012

Reviewed by Joe Calleri

Stars: ★★

Published in Herald Sun online on March 31, 2012 12:49PM

Be warned: Mike Wilmot's language and his choice of topics may have you squirming in your seat.

LET me paint you a mental picture: If actor William Shatner (also a Canadian) and comedian Lewis Black were to have a love child, he would be Mike Wilmot. In fact, Wilmot shares many of Black’s mannerisms, right down to the gravel-voiced, 120-decibel, ranting-style delivery.

For this 49-year-old, pot-bellied, beer-chugging Canadian stand-up comic (who, curiously, lives in London’s exclusive, and toffy, Mayfair district), it seems that no sexual or politically incorrect topic is out of bounds.

Talk about bucketloads of coarse language and adult themes!

But the Friday night audience loved it, seemingly laughing ever more uproariously as Wilmot’s routine became increasingly bluer both in language and content.

Many of the graphically sexual topics explored by Wilmot during his 55-minute routine made this relatively open-minded reviewer squirm uncomfortably in his seat, and cannot possibly be shared in print.

Some that can be shared include Wilmot’s observational rantings regarding little people, why all women are evil (he has two daughters, by the way) and watching reality television (he loves programs which depict people working, such as Ice Road Truckers), and pornography.

Trust me when I say that, after you experience Wilmot’s performance, you will feel the need for a long, cold shower.

By Joe Calleri

Stars: ★★

Late Night Letters and Numbers, April 29, 2012 *

The John Curtin Hotel, Carlton, Thursdays until April 19, 2012

Reviewed by Joe Calleri

Published online in Herald Sun on March 30, 2012 4:10PM

Stars: *

Viewers of SBS’s game show, Letters and Numbers, should feel right at home with Late Night Letters and Numbers.

For those unfamiliar with the game show’s format, contestants are challenged by first forming numbers from nine letters, and then asked to arrive at a particular three digit number by adding, subtracting, and/or multiplying a series of other numbers within a tight time limit.

Five comedians, Brenna Courtney Glazebrook, host Nick Caddaye, Ben Mackenzie (who acts as board master and who appeared on the SBS show) and contestants Neil Sinclair and Tripod’s Scott Edgar, have stolen the game show’s concept, but failed to do anything worthy, witty or playful with it.

Rather than satirise the TV show mercilessly (the TV show is somewhat dry and unappealing, except if you have a predilection for mind games), the comedians while seemingly amusing themselves on-stage, forget to actually engage their audience.

The end result is an unfunny, hour-long, repetitive shambles.

The sole highlight of this performance was the impressive anagram solving and numerical skills displayed by several audience members. Hence the single star this show receives.

Stars: ★

Pop Up Playground, March 31, 2012 *

John Curtin Hotel, Carlton, April 5, 12 and 19, 2012

Reviewed by Joe Calleri

Published in Herald Sun online

March 30, 2012 6:58PM

Stars: ★

OF THE various improvisational forms, long-form improvisation – where improvisers create lengthy narratives from titles provided by an audience – is the most challenging. Few improvisers possess the courage or skill to successfully pull off a long-form show.

For the seven members of comedy troupe Pop Up Playground, their level of ambition far outweighs their collective skills as improvisers, so their show is ultimately overly-long, static, unpolished and decidedly amateurish.

The basic premise of this show is that six of the seven performers are guild leaders (Blacksmith, Art Teacher, Farmer, Carpenter, Doctor, Tax Collector) in the fictional town of Arsington-Brown. The seventh performer narrates. The town is being terrorised by a werewolf that kills off the guild leaders one by one. The audience’s task is to guess which of the guild leaders is the werewolf.

While this form of guessing and role-playing game might be fun to play with children, or with close friends around the dinner table, without the benefit of skilled improvisers, it does not transition well to the stage.

The troupe are, regrettably, far too restrained and sedentary in their performances, and this show would greatly benefit from some heightened physicality and general chaos.

Audiences hungry for high-quality, well-performed improv, should catch one of Impro Melbourne’s Comedy Festival shows.

By Joe Calleri

Sarah Kendall, Persona, March 30, 2012 **

Victoria Hotel, until April 22, 2012

Reviewed by Joe Calleri on March 30, 2012

Stars: **

Published online in Herald Sun on March 31, 2012

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/special-reports/review-sarah-kendall/story-fncv4qxa-1226315225311

Sarah Kendall shares the trials and tribulations of being the mother of a demanding toddler. Supplied

TALL, attractive, with a long mop of strawberry blond hair and resembling American actress Elizabeth Shue, 35-year old stand-up comic Sarah Kendall is very much a yummy mummy.

During her 55-minute routine Kendall, who lives in London, shares with us the trials and tribulations of being mother to a demanding two-year-old toddler, including the nightmare of air travel with such a child.

This aspect of Kendall’s routine was the strongest and most cohesive, and she would have been better served by focusing her routine on her life as a young mum.

Rather, she ventured off into less successful areas when she discussed the highly sexual content of modern music videos by rapper Pitbull, the empty, soul-destroying experience of auditioning for roles in advertisements, and the darker side of fairy stories including The Ugly Duckling.

Kendall’s reading from The Swan, her sequel to The Ugly Duckling, failed to elicit a favourable response from the audience.

Her routine - which included all-too-brief displays of her talent for impersonations - promised much, but due to the rambling, disjointed nature of her observations on her everyday life, failed to deliver any real comedic knock-out blows.

With tighter writing and a structured narrative or specific comedic theme (motherhood) to focus on, there is no reason why Kendall can’t be a genuine star.

By Joe Calleri

Eastend Cabaret, The Revolution Will be Sexual, March 22,2012 **

At Red Bennies, March 23 and 30, April 6 and 13, 2012

Reviewed by Joe Calleri

March 27, 2012 5:26PM
Stars: ***

Published in Herald Sun online

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/special-reports/review-eastend-cabaret-in-the-revolution-will-be-sexual/story-fncv4qxa-1226311642366

IT was a freezing Friday night in Prahran, but the atmosphere inside Red Bennies was decidedly steamy during Eastend Cabaret’s show, The Revolution Will Be Sexual.

A standing-room-only audience had their sexual sensibilities titillated for 50 minutes by the fearless, self-confident, dynamic purveyors of smut, the statuesque Miss Bernadette Byrne, and half-man, half-woman, Victor/Victoria.

This show is not revolutionary (the only specific references are Chairman Mao’s Red Book, and the hammer and sickle), but its content is sexually gratuitous and graphic. Those with delicate sensibilities should avoid it.

The audience guffawed during performances of bawdy, X-rated songs about ping-pong ball popping Thai girls, having sex with a Yoga sensei, having sex with a corpse (!), favourite sexual positions, and masturbating in public in the song Danger Wank. Subtlety is not a selling point for this show.

The highlight of the evening was Victor/Victoria’s versatile musicianship (she plays piano, kazoo, saw, ukulele and violin), and her sensitive rendition of Brian Ferry’s Jealous Guy.

Hot tip: While listed to start at 7pm, the show starts at 8pm. Given its popularity, audiences should arrive early to secure seats.

By Joe Calleri