Published on RHUM.org.au, April 2011
In 1995, three years after telling Bert Newton on New Faces that she’d shaved her head because of the lice, Max Sharam released an album, had a couple of singles make the top 40 pop charts, won one of the eight ARIAs she’d been nominated for, and then vanished. She’s popped up once or twice on the cabaret circuit in the last couple of years, most recently at Midsumma in 2009. Bushpygmalion is her latest autobiographical show.
The promo copy promises ‘opera, ballet, original songs, comic stories and video art projection’. What we get is an uninspired, self-indulgent slide night mixed with a few songs from her now sixteen-year-old album, A Million Year Girl, and bookended by some unrelated material about a fictional opera singer. Continue reading ‘RHUM Loves Max Sharam in Bushpygmalion @ MICF 2011′
Posted in Comedy, RHUM and Reviews.
Published on RHUM.org.au, April 2011
Zoe Lyons starts off one of her anecdotal stories in Clownbusting by asking the audience, ‘Has anyone here ever been to a nudist beach? Where was it?’ Apparently one night someone told her she’d been to a nudist beach in Canberra. Canberra, people. Guess what – I looked it up, and it’s totally real. Kambah Pool, on the Murrumbidgee River. The things you learn at comedy gigs. Continue reading ‘RHUM Loves Zoe Lyons: Clownbusting @ MICF 2011′
Posted in Comedy, RHUM and Reviews.
Published on RHUM.org.au, April 2011
Regrets, she’s had a few. Fiona O’Loughlin hit rock bottom and joined the ranks of Australia’s best-known alcoholics in 2009 when she nodded off mid-performance and woke up the next day in hospital with the vague notion that she might have to be on Dancing with the Stars that night. On a Wing and a Prayer is her frank account of her battle with the booze. The show was a sell-out at last year’s Festival and this year she brought it back to Melbourne for one precious night only. And what a night it was. Continue reading ‘RHUM Loves Fiona O’Loughlin’s On a Wing and a Prayer @ MICF 2011′
Posted in Comedy, RHUM and Reviews.
Published on RHUM.org.au, April 2011
After last year’s highly-structured storytelling hour, The Book of Moron, Felicity Ward has returned to a simpler format this year in Honestly – straightforward stand-up filled with loads of unrelated but nonetheless side-splitting laughs. All of 47kg and with frizzy hair and a peculiar lack of skill in removing a scarf from around her neck, Ward is like a comedy machine-gun, spraying a hail of jokes into the cosy Portico room and leaving no survivors. Blam! Blam! Blam! Continue reading ‘RHUM Loves Felicity Ward: Honestly @ MICF 2011′
Posted in Comedy, RHUM and Reviews.
Published on RHUM.org.au, April 2011
When Dr Brown lowers his bathrobed body to sit on a terrified audience member’s face, two guys at the back get up and leave. The venue is tiny, and packed – the vacant seats are quickly snapped up and there are still several people standing – so their leaving is conspicuous. Dr Brown notes their departure with raised eyebrows, to which they reply, ‘Sorry mate, we’ve got to get going.’ No matter – Brown picks up his permanent marker and adds two strokes to what we now understand to be a tallyboard.Because the show starts off innocently enough. For the first half Brown indulges in the kind of silent, silly mime that made Mr Bean famous. Much of it is funny only because it is so stupid – inserting chopsticks into his beard; eating a banana with a knife and fork. But just when you’re wondering if that’s all there is to it, the show takes a serious turn for the weird – and the incredibly awkward. Continue reading ‘RHUM Loves Dr Brown: Because @ MICF 2011′
Posted in Comedy, RHUM and Reviews.
Published on RHUM.org.au, April 2011
Trades Hall is the perfect venue for Andrew O’Neill, because he’s a very right-on sort of fellow. He hates racists. He hates homophobes. In fact, he hates all people, or so he says. It’s as if he’s unaware of how sweet and affable he comes across onstage. And last week he tweeted, “I’m in Melbourne! Let’s go and have dinner!”, to no one in particular. Misanthrope, indeed.
Also, he’s a metal head. In 2008, Professor Adrian North of Heriot-Watt University in the UK completed a study that showed fans of heavy metal music are ‘gentle and at-ease’. O’Neill radiates these qualities. Frankly, he’s adorable. This image is further reinforced when, having been swigging from a beer, he apologises for contracting a dreadful case of ‘windy pops’. You could take him to meet your Gran for afternoon tea. She probably wouldn’t even mind that he’s wearing a skirt. Continue reading ‘RHUM Loves Andrew O’Neill – Out Of Step @ MICF 2011′
Posted in Comedy, RHUM and Reviews.
Published on RHUM.org.au April 2011
Australia is over fourteen thousand kilometres away from the United States. Travel from one to the other takes around a day. And Melbourne is a city without a harbour bridge or an opera house. I mean, where is Melbourne, anyway?
Are these the barriers that keep young and emerging American comics from visiting our shores? Sure, every year the festival plays host to a bunch of the bigger name artists, those with years of experience under their belts and an existing Australian fanbase. But while hordes of British bootstrappers make their way here year after year, rarely do we see an American equivalent. Continue reading ‘RHUM Loves Headliners @ MICF 2011′
Posted in Comedy, RHUM and Reviews.
Published in Treadlie Issue 1, December 2010
When Sydney bike gang the Feather Brigade held their first public event, HalloWheel, in October, co-founder Kathi Herricks wore a very fitting costume. ‘I went as a cult leader,’ she says, ‘which is kind of appropriate for the Feather Brigade because we’re trying to get people to join our little cult.’
Kathi and her housemate, Jai Saunders, started blogging as the Feather Brigade in June after rediscovering the joy of riding. Neither had hopped on a bike since childhood. ‘All of my memories were of being a kid and getting bruised and banged up shins from the pedals and almost riding into a river – my bike memories weren’t very happy memories,’ says Jai. But something about watching the Sydney cycleways develop inspired her to get back on a bike. Then she found Florence. Continue reading ‘Wanna be in my gang?’
Posted in Interview profiles and Treadlie.
Published on RHUM.org.au October 2010
Geraldine Quinn has been on my radar for the last few years as must-see local comedy talent. The postcard lying on the table in the Trades Hall New Ballroom supported this theory, boasting four-star reviews for Shut Up and Sing from six different Australian and British publications. And the feisty cabaret artist certainly met expectations in most areas: four-star voice (an absolute belter), four-star moves (daggy but deft), four-star attire (all spangly-dangly razzle-dazzle). Continue reading ‘Melbourne Fringe Festival 2010: Geraldine Quinn – Shut Up and Sing’
Posted in RHUM and Reviews.
Published on RHUM.org.au October 2010
The promo for Ugly Blue Flowers says, “It is not something that is understood. More felt.” Hopefully that lets me off the hook to at least some degree – I certainly didn’t understand this show. I can’t tell you what the point of it was, or even if there was a point at all. But I can tell you that I enjoyed it, and that it was very, very funny. Continue reading ‘Melbourne Fringe Festival 2010: Ugly Blue Flowers’
Posted in RHUM and Reviews.
