Mid-year comedy resolution

It's the end of the comedy festival for another year, and I've had a pretty good one and seen a variety of performers. There have been a few scandals thrown up in the face of laughter which make for interesting comment.

One was Rhys Darby crisiticing reviews for giving away punch-lines and saying this was a lazy form of reviewing. This may be so, but surely if a reviewer throws one line into a review, the comic has plenty more where that came from? If he only has one joke, would it be worth seeing his show? The one-liner may give a flavour of the performance to come, like a trailer for a film or the blurb on a book jacket. And how else can a reviewer talk about a comic without mentioning the material?

Another topic of debate was a criticism that reviewers of comedy are usually theatre or music reviewers and therefore don't know much about comedy. Again, this may be so. I would be surprised if there were any dedicated comedy reviewers in this country, as there's simply not enough of it. So we might not be au-fait with the latest in comedy conceits and hilarity theory, but surely we can tell if it makes us and others laugh. Isn't that the point? Or am I missing it in my unspecialised critic way?

Thirdly, on his Dominion Post, entertainment blog, Simon Sweetman complained about the lack of humour to be found in an "interchangeable local female comedian referring to her genitalia a lot." This was, of course, designed to get a reaction - and it did. People love to loath critics. He also had the audacity to suggest that The Flight of the Conchords was just "the same joke over and over." This is tantamount to treason here, where you have to publicly declare alleigance to anything that New Zealand produces.

So there has been much frothing at the mouth over who is funnier - us or them. It was pointed out that the international acts performing here during the festival are at the top of their game and have received some sort of investment to get them this far. Admittedly my favourites of the festival are English, Irish, Scottish, Canadian and even Australian.

Kiwis aren't really known for being a funny people. They are the Switzerland of the southern hemisphere; beautiful scenery and a little bit too uptight. But their stand-up comedians are definitely worth a look. From Jeremey Elwood to Dai Henwood, Steve Wrigley to Jan Maree, there are some very funny people out there strutting and sweating their stuff on the boards with only a microphone and a glass of water for company.

They're well worth supporting and my mid-year's resolution is to see more live comedy. I'll be hanging out at venues lending my support to anyone with the guts to try and be entertaining. First up is this trio of non-interchangeable female comedians who I don't think mentioned their genitalia once between them....

The Comediettes,
Fringe Bar, 19-23 May

Three Kiwi women walk into a pub. No, it’s not a joke, but it is a great night of comedy. The Comediettes are book-ended by Jim Stanton and Emma Olsen, with Sarah Harpur thrown into the middle for contrast. Both have a fairly dead-pan delivery and have managed to master the art of saying truly random statements with a straight face.

This is the fourth time I have seen Jim and each time she walks a fine and well-balanced line between jaded cynicism and fresh material. She is at her best with physical comedy and throughout her piece about reluctant dancing I could feel her pain.

Emma introduces herself as the ethnic quotient of the trio and proceeds to pull random images (literally in some cases, which I won’t spoil for you) from the air. She makes a virtue out of ignorance and her line about proving that anyone can get a degree from Victoria University these days is nicely judged.

Sarah bounds onto the stage like a delinquent sunbeam. High pitched and high voltage she delivers spite with a smile. Her grin is so infectious that she can dish out the insults and you will readily laugh at yourself. The songs she performs at the end of her set are hilarious and she has a pukkah hunch when to deliver the sucker-punch. She is the winner of the 2009 Raw Comedy Quest and on the basis of this set, I can see why.

The Comediettes do themselves a slight disservice with their underwear-strewn set backed with airbrushed pictures of themselves a-la Desperate Housewives. The flyers for discounts on shoes were well received by the women in the audience although I overheard some muttering from a couple of men thinking it was all going to be “girls’ stuff”. These women are anything but desperate and in fact radiate composure which promises bright things for the future of New Zealand comedy.

Carry on laughing

Well, I went to the beginning of the Comedy Festival and had First Laughs, and I have had many laughs since then. For a review of four of the shows I've seen, you can read my review on the Lumiere website.

Two of the big names were Steve Coogan and Dylan Moran - both whom I was keen to see.

Steve Coogan was good, performing a range of his characters including Paul and Pauline Calf, Tony Ferrino (singing sensation of Latin extraction) and, of course, Alan Partridge. As with Beau Tyler, his skit was based on a self-improvement scheme: it seems it's the new comedy.

My favourite bit was the music hall style number at the end which, with it's jaunty chorus - 'Everyone's a bit of a c*&t sometimes' - and cheeky chappy delivery, had a very Monty Python feel to it.

Steve Coogan is a slick and polished professional with perfect pitch and timing. He's got a great voice too and is an excellent performer and entertainer. However, on the basis of this show, I'm not sure that he is a stand-up comedian as much as an actor and raconteur.

Dylan Moran was absolutely excellent. He pretends to be shambolic, rambling and disorganised, but he is so very keen and sharp and I love his material. He probably does have existentialist intense arguments with himself in the pub after one too many red wines.

He was drinking on stage and I'm pretty sure it wasn't put on. I would have to say he's one of the best comics I've ever seen live (along with Jack Dee, my second favourite grumpy old git) - he seems genuinely bemused and amused by life.

The end of the dream... is just the beginning

Okay, so we didn't win the title and it's all our fault. Those draws against just-promoted sides early in the season have come back to bite us in the bum. Of course it is disappointing to (possibly) be the only side ever to have lost just two games and not won the title.

With a defensive record to be proud of and Reina's golden gloves on the line, Carragher lost it with Arbeloa, which wasn't pretty but showed a determination in the defensive lines that bodes well for next season - yes I'm looking to next season now; it's hard to dwell on the past.

Liverpool have also beaten the club record in terms of Premier League points, but still not won the title. Apart from the early losses, the main reason for this is, obviously, Manchester United. They should be congratulated for their consistency. The fact that Benitez will not congratulate Ferguson only adds fuel to his fire, and makes Rafa seems churlish.

Even if you don't like their manager or some of their players (which I don't) there is no denying that they have won the games they needed to win with a toughness of spirit that is essential to a champion team. Man Utd have now equalled Liverpool's title-winning triumphs, which makes for a great contest next season if nothing else.

But there is a bright side to all this. Stevie G is the Football Writers' Player of the Year (despite Ferguson publicly questioning his credentials) and he has, in fact, played superbly. My favourite was, naturally, the goal against Man Utd in the 4-1 drubbing at Old Trafford.

We'll be back. Meanwhile, I'm supporting Burnley for the Championship. We are buying the lottery tickets but Him Outdoors says how disappointing would it be to get all the way over there only to see them lose - very, I should imagine.

So he too is looking forward to next season where he's hoping he'll be supporting his side playing in the top-flight once again, and actually getting to see them on TV in this country. There may be one or two frosty silences in our house. Bring it on!

Look-i-like-i

Today we bring you the latest from the look-i-like-i files (okay, so I've only ever done one before and that was a year ago). Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed the similarity between baby-faced England bowler Stuart Broad (above), and spoiled, sneering Slytherin student (and Harry Potter nemesis), Draco Malfoy (below).

No? Just me, then.

Books read in January

The following are short reviews of the books that I read in January. The marks I have given them in the brackets are out of five.

Miss Garnet’s Angel – Salley Vickers (3.4)

This is one of those novels that EM Forster or Henry James might have written in which an elderly woman, Julia Garnet, goes to Italy and falls in love with Venice. She learns things about herself, such as not to close her mind or heart to new, hedonistic experiences. It is full of Venetian references with a dash of art and religion, as in Italy it is almost impossible to ignore either.

Miss Garnet travels to Italy in remembrance of her friend, Harriet, who has recently died. Initially, a parsimonious spinster, Julia soon discovers that it is not as hard to make friends and initiate relationships as she had thought. She can portray whatever image of herself she chooses in Italy where no one knows her and she is not confined by preconceptions.

She used to be a Communist and very austere, but now she starts to let herself indulge and even flirts with Catholicism. She learns about the angel Raphael through artworks and discovers he is the angel of healing and that he accompanied Tobias on his journey through the wilderness. Allegory begins to crash in, in deafening waves and this is the least enjoyable part of the narrative.

When Julia tells the story to a random stranger on a train it is a terrible device and makes her sound like the elderly teacher she is attempting to shed. The spiritual or supernatural element is overwrought and if Vickers had eased up on the symbolism it would have left a lasting impression rather than a whacking imprint.

Death on the Ice – Robert Ryan (4.4)

What made people risk their lives in treacherous conditions among people they didn’t know to reach the South Pole? This novel based on diaries and letters from the men on Scott’s 1912 expedition attempts to answer that question. Robert Ryan makes these men human through his imagined dialogue and characterisation and he describes the Antarctic scenery in all its terrifying beauty. This is an end of an era style of novel which depicts a time of heroism and duty against insurmountable odds. It is gripping boy’s own adventure stuff told with compelling language.

There was great rivalry between the English and the Norwegians and much is made of the difference between Scott and Amundsen. “Amundsen won the Pole. But Scott, he achieved immortality.” Scott’s expeditions included scientific research and quests other than reaching the pole, including gathering data that has been used in contemporary theories on climate change and anthropological information about emperor penguins and the effects of extreme temperatures.

Even though we know that Scott doesn’t make it back, he came agonisingly close. Mistakes were made; instructions given but forgotten in the intensity of the moment, and the mistaken confusion is almost Shakespearean in its scope. Part of the excitement and tension is due to the writing, which is very good and keeps the novel thrilling with is evocative and economical imagery. The novel also humanises the men and their journey and gives a voice to Kathleen, as the strong woman who had to wait behind, knowing that her husband was risking death and aware of the gossip that greeted her whenever she went out without him.

Zlata’s Diary – Zlata Filipovic (3.2)

Before the war in Bosnia, Zlata Fliipovic was a normal privileged eleven-year old girl. She read books, played the piano and watched television, talking with her friends and going on skiing holidays. Like many teenaged girls, she kept a diary. Then in September 1991, everything changed in Sarajevo. Inspired by Anne Frank, who wrote to Kitty, Zlata calls her diary Mimmy, and confides her thoughts and fears in it. It is full of overwrought adolescent pretension and hyperbole – including a bombardment of capital letters and exclamation marks – but she has justification for her terror and anguish.

Zlata’s diary was discovered by Janine di Giovanni, a journalist for The Sunday Times in Bosnia. When her diary was published, Zlata became a media celebrity and a symbol of the casualties of war. She is often referred to as the new Anne Frank, but her work is not of the same calibre. From the day she knows her diary is due for publication, she is constantly aware of herself and the image she is projecting.

It’s not exactly the sort of book you would read to gain political insight, but it is worth reading to see how the war affected her. She describes how her family move their mattresses into the kitchen where they eat, sleep and live. There is no gas or electricity so she writes by candlelight and bathes in a basin. She writes of how they cope without running water, and describes the scenes outside of water collection, with one eye on the possible public reception.

One of the hardest things for a young girl is the lack of social contact. Her records of her visits to her grandparents are the most honest entries in the diary and she is concerned about the effect the war is having on her parents. Zlata looks forward to birthdays because it is the only time “when the neighbours relax, spend some together and cheer up a bit.” She spends the rest of her days in the house and the cellar, aware that her circle of friends has shrunk to the extent that she feels caged.

The Partnership – Barry Unsworth (3.5)

Published in 1966, this is Barry Unsworth’s first novel and it was immediately placed on the list of banned books due to its homosexual subject matter. This is, as is often the case, naïve and misses the point, as the novel also deals with a variety of themes including friendship, cruelty and loneliness.

In a plot practically made for an Ealing farce, Michael Moss and Ronald Foley are business partners, drawn together to make pixies for the tourist market of Cornwall that both despise. Both are using the other but the balance of power frequently shifts during their relationship. Moss is quietly oppressed, while Foley, although he likes to think of himself as a man about town, has no firm opinions and melds into whatever mould he is poured, much like the plaster of Paris shapes he makes on the side.

The Partnership is a curiously depressing little novel. With its dark undercurrents, shifting power struggle, and seminal sociological setting it is reminiscent of the film, The Servant. As it questions the elements necessary to form any type of partnership it leaves a sense of melancholy in its wake.

The Quick and the Dead – Janine di Giovanni (4.2)

Janine di Giovanni is the woman who ‘discovered’ Zlata’s diary, and this her collection of dispatches from Bosnia, particularly Sarajevo. Just as she knew that one person’s story is more affecting than the plight of a nation, so she realised that different angles and viewpoints would make this war more interesting to the Western media.

Although aware that she had the option to leave and so could never understand their plight, she did share some experiences with the besieged citizens, however, and explains these to the reader in terms they may be able to understand, appealing to the senses and personal deprivation. She describes how cold it was in winter; the endless queues for water, food, bread, wood, and even the opportunity to search for rubbish; the constant fear of the snipers; and the simple need for a little luxury.

Di Giovanni narrates these tales minimally and without melodrama, allowing them to speak for themselves. A resident of a nursing home, where old people were left to die without heating or medical supplies, braved the snipers to cross the street to the Holiday Inn where the journalists stayed because they needed to tell their story. This is the responsibility and motivation under which di Giovanni wrote. She felt that the world needed to know what was happening. It had all seemed such a distant possibility until it actually happened. Sarajevo hosted the Winter Olympics in 1984. Less than ten years later, the world was watching for different reasons.

The Quick and the Dead is an excellent collection of shocking stories that try to explain what the hell happened in Sarajevo. It has a rightful place in the canon of modern war literature.

First Laughs

First Laughs. Comedy Festival 2009

Wellington Opera House, May 3

Once again the New Zealand International Comedy Festival began in Wellington with First Laughs – a pick and mix of the talent to be showcased over the next three weeks. Local and international acts shared the stage at the Opera House competing for audience attention and hoping to woo them along to their forthcoming full-length show.

The night was ably compèred by Steve Wrigley leaping about the stage with his ‘seducto dance’, dislike of Easter and advice to cheer up and stop taking the recession so seriously. Some of his material was a little jaded (aren’t we over jokes about LOTR yet?) but his delivery was engaging and he’s generous towards his fellow performers.

Despite Wrigley’s introductions, it was harder to differentiate between the acts, because none of them have a particular schtick. Last year we had unicycles, flow charts, impressions and musical comedy. This year we had a load of blokes (with only two women performing), one of whom (Mark Scott) has a guitar and one of whom (Te Radar) has a sustainability TV series – I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard jokes about pig hunting.

In general the night was mercifully short of swine flu jokes, although Benjamin Crellin (with excellent stage presence) handed out masks for people in the front row and then chastised one for not putting it on – ‘I bet you’re the sort of guy who has sex with a condom – in his pocket.’

Instead the jokes were mainly aimed at Facebook, the New Zealand Defence Force (which seems fractionally unfair as apparently it can’t defend itself) and the emotionless reaction of the Kiwi male (or Aussie in the case of Mickey D).

According to Steve Wrigley all reviewers are f*&%wits and the worse a review is, the better a comedy show sells. Apparently if we hate it, it must be good. But what if we like it, because on the basis of these condensed comedy skits there was lots to like.

International highlights included Janey Godley, back with her hard-hitting self-effacing Glaswegian approach, Jason John Whitehead, whose charming Canadian wordplay is effortlessly original, and Geordie Jason Cook saying inappropriate things because of the voice in his head.

Among the home-grown gems were Cori Gonzalez-Macuer who manages to make terrorists on the tube funny and Dai Henwood who has started hating things he has no reason to hate, like helping his friends move and toffee apples.

TJ MacDonald also merits a longer stint with his laconic observations – does he really love Secret Santa because he enjoys being the anonymous cause of someone else’s disappointment? Without wishing to inversely influence anyone’s shows, I encourage you to find out.

'Tell me a story'; 'I don't want to give you nightmares'

A Most Outrageous Humbug, Three Spoon Theatre
Downstage Theatre, 29 April – 7 May

The opening gambit of A Most Outrageous Humbug sets the scene for the entire play. Artfully designed piles of books and sombre mood lighting (Marcus McShane) form the backdrop to Edgar Allan Poe’s parents’, Elizabeth (Jean Sergent) and David (Adam Donald) ferocious and theatrical argument which ends in tears and blood.

Top hats, velvet waistcoats, silk cravats hoop skirts, and fortified corsets (gorgeously designed by Dawa Devereux) hint at the constriction of fierce passions. Meanwhile the scenario is underpinned by Tane Upjohn Beatson at the piano with its exposed hammers and strings playing dramatic, morose music. This promises to be an American Gothic Romance with dark undercurrents of violence and passion, and boy, does it deliver.

Told through a mix of Poe’s essays, poems and stories woven with imagined events, the play purports to be a biography of the man. As a lesson to anyone who ever wants to know how much of an author’s work is biographical – it’s simply impossible to know. Three Spoon Theatre under the direction of Charlotte Bradley have created a work which shows a man spiralling into madness and sabotaging his entire literary career, loosing himself in stories and wine. You might just as well worry about their state of mind.

Edgar Allan Poe became an orphan at two, the inference being he had no early stabilising factors in his life. Driven by thronging passion – ‘his ardour was matched only by his ambition’ – he hoped academia might rein in his wild excesses. We are told this by Thomas McGrath narrating as Poe from the sidelines, becoming increasingly involved in the action as the play progresses. The play both shows and tells with Ralph McCubbin Howell acting as Poe throughout.

Poe writes every moment available between his studies to the detriment of them both, and becomes romantically involved with Frances Osgood (Adrianne Roberts). His rival in love and literature is the ‘sweaty and creepy but persistent and rich’ Rufus Griswold (Ed Watson). Poe may be ‘talented and passionate’ but he also has a wild disregard for propriety reflected in his appearance. Howell plays him as explosive, which leaves him with nowhere to go as his tempo is feverish from the beginning.

The journey into madness is marked by a number of well-scripted scenes. There is a poetry reading between Poe and Griswold at which Griswold suggests ‘The ladies will enjoy our academic duelling’. There is Poe’s peculiarly abstract proposal to his 13-year-old cousin Virginia ‘Sissy’ Eliza Celmm (played with wide-eyed gaucheness by Alex Lodge) using his macabre stories as a form of courtship – ‘I liked your poetry better’. Sissy’s amusing wittering suits the young girl’s naivety, but her chilly defence is a little modern – ‘I may not be an adult, but at least I’m not a prat.’

There is the costume party book launch at which Elmira Shelton (Jean Sergent) dresses as the author – is it a sincere form of flattery or grist to his burgeoning paranoia? Meanwhile a mysterious hooded figure, seen only by Sissy, stalks the party, which cannot bode well. In orchestrated breaks from the party, guests partner up into formal dance and corpses return to life.

As Poe reads his stories we are frequently deceived into questioning what is reality and given unheralded glimpses into his manic mind. ‘What a gift to tap into the psyche of a blood-thirsty psycho so effortlessly’. He applies for an editing position only to be interviewed by characters from his short story Doctor Tarr (Adam Donald) and Professor Fether (Jean Sergent) in a show-stealing scene.

This is a brilliantly written script and hangs so tightly together that it is hard to believe it was devised collaboratively. The colours of red (the consumptive blood that claims so many characters) black (the raven feather; the relentless gloom) and white (the purity and innocence of Sissy; the bleached bones of his tales) are woven into the tapestry of the narrative. Death unifies all from his mother’s untimely demise to his own wrestling with himself (literally) in the final scene. It’s not exactly joyful, but it is triumphant, and a worthy inclusion in the Pick of the Fringe.