TALKING THROUGH YOUR ARTS: DO, TAKE, HAVE, GIVE
The rough Australian sardonic humour is ever present in the jokes and stories that have been handed down throughout generations. In the turmoil of war, work and play Australians have built up an ethic of mateship that has become a lasting characteristic. Mateship embraces an old mate’s new mate: “Why!” – with a mighty clout on the back – “comeanavadrink!” The mighty burst of profanities are subject to mood, but are both good and mad.
Heckler: “Wot you ganna do about ‘ousing?”
Sir Robert Menzies: “Put an ‘H’ in front of it.”
This year’s Cracker Night was spread across three venues, the Enmore Theatre, Seymour Centre and the Metro. The showcase featured comedians performing at the 2013 Sydney Comedy Festival with a handful of funny folk shuttling between the stages. The “surprise” guest performance at Enmore was cause enough to loosen any audience member sitting on their hands.
The assortment of 150 headliners in the 9th annual Sydney Comedy Festival are not to be outdone by the figure of 485 shows as part of the 27th Melbourne Comedy Festival. There are some headliners such as the American son-of-a-gun Eddy Ifft who targets rednecks and racism with crossfire parodies and droppings of old material to attract patronage. Londoner Gina Yashere’s boisterous gags are well bagged. The creepy engagement of elderly folk, romance and the shaming of those sports competitors representing small countries that enter the Olympics in an attempt to lure tourism. Nicknamed the “Sculling Sloth” a Nigerian rower controversially was so far behind in the 2012 race that the time taken to finish would arguably provide time for a lake to dry.
In the early 19th century the celebrated duo Bert Williams and Sydney born Leon Errol were one of the greatest comic acts of all times. They were reported to have had audiences choking with laughter and nearly falling out of their seats in the legends of American Vaudeville Ziegfeld Follies. One of the parts Errol had played in Australia was that of Eccles in Caste, one of the most celebrated drunks in dramatic literature. He had some success as a juvenile but basically his talent was in the musical field, and invariably he appeared as a red-nosed comic. His first job in San Francisco was in a beer garden where he sang songs that were followed by groans from the audience and a mass pelting with peanuts and popcorn. His eccentric dancing, however, was without an accent and caught the crowd’s fancy. Wobbly legs combined with his funny brows and eyes, he was later to become the most hilarious inebriate ever to stagger across a stage. “Rubber legs” became his nickname, and before he was through he’d played drunken sailors, husbands, cowboys, chefs and even a king.
Enter Randy, a purple puppet in the shape of a penis who retells his recent experiences since he decided to jump on the wagon. Sober is the brainchild of Melbourne-based comedians Sammy J and Heath McIvor who have been working collaboratively since 2008. In 2010 Randy was born into the production Ricketts Lane and received the Melbourne Comedy Festival Barry Award for outstanding show.
On stage and on the screen, comedians are interpreters of people living in various environments; the comedians themselves write the sketches and skits. The result presented is a reflection of a common and not too optimistic view of life. They occupy the role of opinion circulators and supporters of established opinion and transmit their personal reactions to life. They are not propagandists, and there is no sinister plot among them to glorify established opinion. Most of them may be indifferent to conventional political institutions and conventional modes of living, but they know mostly what their audience want.
The full stage act has the advantage of a curtain to close in on it. The stage at Enmore was a circus of operations. The final act by Paul McDermott, Paul Sings, played as front man Peter Helliar improvised flat-lines while heckling the production crew, “black ninjas”. If in doubt tumble out toilet humour, Helliar gave reference to his intermission experience when he overheard an exchange while doing number-twos. One; set the scene, Two; unzip the trick, Three, wash your hands and applause! I shouldn’t jest as I did enjoy his reference to our use of redundancies in language, “poor-of-time” in which one of the persons in the toilet was explaining his agenda. Helliar rightly pointed out, “He’s BUSY!” As my mind gathered some further fodder I was quietly hoping he would probe further. Some further examples include; “dry lake”, “true fact”, “prior history” “end result”; and more oxymorons, “uninvited guest”, “friendly fire” and “death benefits.”
With the rock band install completed, “Mr Good News Week” beams onto stage. Now we come to this evening’s surprise celebrity guest who enters masked in the Festival mascot’s guerrilla headdress. A bit of amplified buffoonery reveals… David Hasselhoff! The former star of Baywatch towers over McDermott as he introduces their duet and foretells us of his Berlin record label paying him NOT to record this song, “OOGA CHUCKA, OOGA, OOGA!” – And the audience hooked onto some kind of feeling. (AS)
2013 Sydney Comedy Festival, Until May 11, various venues, sydneycomedyfest.com.au
BY ANGELA STRETCH
