MAN ABOUT TOWN

No special reason, just a couple of the songs I loved at the time, and which I still get a kick out of today. Part one in a (possible) series. BRONKSI BEAT - Smalltown Boy I can still remember the first time I saw this clip on Countdown ; I was a gay teenager growing up in a small country town where I was bullied on an almost weekly basis, and you wouldn't believe just how much this clip resonated for me at the time... THE BUREAU - Only For Sheep Not quite sure why this one has always stuck with me, the jaunty ska rhythm aside. Maybe because it was one of the first examples of a song excoriating the emptiness of the 9-to-5 working routine? MEN WITHOUT HATS - Safety Dance So I had strange taste at 15. So sue me. ADAM AND THE ANTS - Stand and Deliver "It's kind of hard to tell a scruff the big mistake he's making." Wiser words were never spoken, Adam old son.

THE MELBOURNE MUSEUM COMEDY TOUR By Ben McKenzie, Janet A. McLeod and Andy Muirhead At The Melbourne Museum , Carlton 6pm, April 16 -18 and 23 – 25 $10 - $15 Rating: *** Dishing out laughs and information in equal measure, The Melbourne Museum Comedy Tour is a uniquely enjoyable way to experience one of our major institutions. Hosts Ben McKenzie, Janet A. McLeod and Andy Muirhead (of television’s Collectors fame) take turns guiding the audience through specific museum exhibits. Dinosaurs – and the dinosaurs of the computer age – are the domain of the enthusiastically geeky McKenzie, who cheerfully points out the inaccuracies of Jurassic Park and the dangers of killing an albatross. McLeod overseas the marine leg of the tour, cracking gently risqué jokes about giant squid and hippy dolphins; leaving the charismatic Muirhead – a trained entomologist – to highlight the wonders of the insect world. While the quality of the jokes sometimes leaves a little ...

I'm just home from the Melbourne preview of J.J. Abram's reboot of the Star Trek franchise, and am still buzzing from seeing such a fun, fantastic and vibrant film - and I'm not even a Star Trek fan! Unlike the Star Wars prequels, which took my childhood memories and warped them into a bloated, boring, badly-scripted and tedious trilogy, Abram's vividly realised Star Trek prequel has wit, warmth, sex appeal and humour aplenty - as well as lashings of action, drama and derring-do. It's instantly familiar, but incredibly fresh, with superb performances all round (save perhaps for Eric Bana, who is somewhat hampered by the limitations of his character: the Romulan villain, Nero; and a rather miscast Winona Ryder as Spock's human mother) matched by an equally strong script and cinematography. Without going into spoilers, the film's time-twisting plot both establishes and excuses some subtle and not-so-subtle tweaks to Star Trek canon, and sets the stage for some...

2008 Comedy Festival award winners. As is traditional, the shortlist for this year's Melbourne International Comedy Festival Barry Award (for the most outstanding show) and the Golden Gibbo (awarded to a local, independent show that bucks trends and pursues the artist's idea more strongly than it pursues any commercial lure) were announced late last night, the second last Saturday of the festival. The 2009 Barry Award nominees are: The Pajama Men - Versus vs Versus 1000 Years of German Humour Sarah Millican - Sarah Millican's Not Nice Wilson Dixon Rides Again Otis Lee Crenshaw featuring Special Guest Rich Hall Tim Minchin - Ready for This? Asher Treleaven - Open Door The 2009 Golden Gibbo nominees are: Wes Snelling - Kiosk Randy's Postcards from Purgatory The List Operators Rob Hunter - Moosecow Tom Ballard Is What He Is Vigilantelope - Tale of the Golden Lease The awards proper - together with the comedian-voted award The Piece of Wood, The Age Critics Award for the Be...

Kiosk is a new outing for Melbourne boy Wes Snelling, and is an excellent showcase for his ever-developing skills as a performer. Less a cabaret show, more theatre-based, it's an exploration through song of his childhood; a story about growing up in the Kyneton Caravan Park and of the characters who lived there. If you're a fan of Snelling's work, then you'll definitely enjoy the opportunity to watch him push himself as a performer, relying on his acting skills and a handful of simple props - a handkerchief, a hat, a handbag - rather than full costumes, to convey the progression from character to character: Diane, a grotesque mother, the dim-witted Tony, the shrewish Leonie from Niddrie, and Tina, an aging alcoholic singer... Live music is provided by a band dressed as workmen on the under-construction bypass road that will sound the death knell for the caravan park; and a scene in which young Wes eavesdrops on their raucous conversation is rich with homoerotic subtext...

TOM BALLARD IS WHAT HE IS At The Forum – Ladies’ Lounge, corner Flinders & Russell Streets, Melbourne Tuesday to Saturday 8.15pm, Sunday 7.15pm, until April 26 $15 - $18 Rating: *** ½ A self-described “member of the non-pussy posse,” 19 year old Tom Ballard has crafted a solid and satisfying evening of stand-up for his first solo show at the Comedy Festival. The 55 minute show is structured around the subject of Ballard’s sexuality: growing up gay in Warrnambool and coming out to his family and friends. He is, he says, “quite comfortable with my crippling condition”, and it shows. Rather than an angry or angst-ridden coming out story, Ballard displays wit and warmth as he embarks on a series of humorous anecdotes about the challenges of pretending to be straight, the masturbatory habits of teenage boys, and the difficulties of finding a date. Ballard copes well with the distractions of his small, stuffy venue, and confidently presents some serious ob...

THE LAST BUCKET OF WATER By The Hounds The Arts Centre - Black Box, 100 St Kilda Road, Melbourne 8.30pm, Tuesday to Saturday until April 25 $18 - $24 Rating: ** ½ Pop-culture references, slapstick and an impending Apocalypse named ‘Neal’ combine in The Last Bucket of Water ; a gleefully manic story that unfortunately comes across as rather lightweight. The fate of the last bucket of water in a drought-plagued world rests in the hands of three unlikely heroes: Adam McKenzie, Robby Lloyd and Tegan Higginbotham, aka Melbourne comedy trio The Hounds. Half the fun in a Hounds production lies in watching the trio playfully embellish the script: improvisation and adlibbing are key elements of their comedy. But compared to their 2008 show, Every Film Ever Made , The Last Bucket of Water lacks a solid foundation around which the trio can develop their routines. Consequently, despite being restaged with all the resources of the Arts Centre’s Full Tilt program after previous seasons at the Melbo...

ALL THE THOUGHTS I’VE HAD SINCE I WAS BORN By Mark Watson Melbourne Town Hall – Main Hall Tuesday - Saturday 7.15pm, Sunday & Saturday 18 at 9.15pm, until April 25 $29.50 - $36 Rating: ** Mark Watson describes his job as a comedian succinctly: “My whole life is to think things and blurt them out loud.” On Sunday night, Watson had a lot to say, although little of any consequence. Starting out amidst the crowd, “because nothing will relax you more than me prowling around the aisles,” the gangly comic launched into a manic and meandering monologue that took in everything from hen’s nights and the children’s television program Fraggle Rock , to the “exciting lottery” of going to the toilet on a moving train. But for all his talk, Watson had nothing significant to say. His barrage of words was a smokescreen, concealing the fact that this latest work is both lazy and lightweight. Watson can be an excellent and endearing entertainer, but this s...

The first thing I did this morning, once I'd woken up, was to plonk myself down in front of the computer and watch the new Doctor Who Easter special, Planet of the Dead . And what a marvellous romp it is - far stronger than the Christmas special, The Next Doctor , with sterling performances, a great script, and some truly exciting moments that had me squee -ing with fanboy joy. If you want to watch it, but don't want to break the law by downloading the program illegally - and after all, who'd do a naughty thing like that? - then I advise you to click here and visit the excellent blog, Life, Doctor Who and Combom where you can view the entire episode embedded via YouTube. Hurrah! Now we only have to wait several more months until the next special - The Waters of Mars ... As to when Planet of the Dead will air on the ABC, they're still not saying anything other than "'Planet of the Dead' will air on the ABC over Winter this year. An exact date will be announ...

A few more brief impressions of shows I've seen but haven't been officially reviewing at this year's Comedy Festival... EVENING: A CABARET The Duskbuskers - Casey Bennetto ( Keating! ), Iain Grandage ( Cloudstreet , Vamp ), Aurora Kurth ( Take The L Out Of Lover ) and David Abiuso - perform a sequence of original songs in homage to the evening and our diverse nocturnal interests. Evening: A Cabaret is a gently paced, deeply engaging work which superbly showcases the skills of its four performers; from Casey's lyrebird-like ability to pay homage to every musical genre under the (setting) sun, to Kurth's seductive torchsong charms. Sometimes humourous, sometimes passionate, it's a very enjoyable antidote to the stand-up-comedy-blues. Rating: *** 1/2 ERIC: THE ONE MAN SKETCH COMEDY SHOW Clad in a nondescript suit which renders him an Everyman, thus enabling him to take on some truly fantastic personae, Scott Gooding performs an array of skits penned by some of Mel...

And now, for a change of pace, some brief observations of shows I'm not reviewing for The Age... NINA CONTI - EVOLUTION Last year, UK ventriloquist Nina Conti blew me away (and became the first ever co-winner of the Barry Award) with her amazing show, Complete and Utter Conti . This year the Scottish-Italian comedian is back with a brand new show, Evolution , which picks off where last year's show left off - literally. If you haven't seen Conti before, prepare to be amazed. Coupled with her foul-mouthed sidekick Monkey, and a few other puppets to flesh out the act, she's one hell of a performer. While Evolution didn't feel as polished and as perfect as Complete and Utter Conti , it's still hilarious, with some great routines - such as a sequence where Conti blackmails her father, the actor Tom Conti, into allowing himself to appear in the show - and another, perfectly realised gag where Monkey hypnotises Nina on a pyschoanalytic couch. Good fun, and definitely ...

Putting Hats on Ducks By A Lot Of Bread Trades Hall – Old Council Chambers, 2 Lygon Street , Carlton South Tuesday to Saturday at 9.30pm until April 25 $15 - $20 Rating: *** Putting Hats on Ducks is the Comedy Festival debut by A Lot of Bread – Lucy Shaw, Courtney Trathan and Madeleine Tucker – and cements the reputation this eager young trio earned with their acclaimed 2008 Melbourne Fringe show, All Aboard the Fizzy Train . Three farmers are aghast to discover that The Big Company is constructing a train line across their adjacent properties in order to assist the commute to work for a community of snobbish barnacles. The farmers’ quest to save their livelihoods introduces us to a surreal range of characters – including a bakehouse that yearns to follow in the footsteps of Olympic swimmer Daniel Kowalski – and some marvellously absurd situations. Puns, slides and homemade props feature heavily. While the trio’s energy flags towards the end, ...

Richard Watts chats with Australian animator Adam Elliot about his new feature film. In many ways, Adam Elliot sees his debut feature film, Mary and Max , as a coming out movie. “Mary’s a mary,” Elliot laughs over lunch at the Abbotsford Convent. “I’ve done a lot of interviews with different gay and lesbian mags and blogs and whatever, and I’ve been really relieved and reassured – because I thought they were just going to focus on [the character of] poor, old Damien Popodopolous, a stereotypical gay character – I thought, ‘Oh, they’re going to hate me.’ But they actually ignored me in a way and they’ve actually seen Mary’s story as a gay story. “She sees herself as different, and not fitting in, and marginalised and melancholic and suicidal and all these things that all people go through, but especially gay and lesbian people.” The bleak but beautiful Mary and Max – a feature length stop-motion animation made in the “wonky” style of Elliot’s 2003 Oscar-award winning short Harvie Krumpe...

FORGET YOUR TROUBLES C'MON GET HOOPSY By Claire Hooper Victoria Hotel - Acacia Room, 215 Little Collins Street, Tuesday-Saturday 7.15pm, Sunday 6.15pm, until April 26, $16.90/$19.90 Rating: 2/5 LIKE a stone skipping across the pond of comedy, Claire Hooper's Forget Your Troubles C'mon Get Hoopsy , bounces brightly but fails to make a big splash. The show falls short of the mark she set with earlier, more inventive work. Compared with last year's Storybook , and especially her award-winning 2006 show Oh, Forget Your Troubles C'mon Get Hoopsy feels slight, even bland, while her material seems at odds with itself. Lighter routines about fame, farts and marriage fail to gel with more sincere material about depression. Hooper is at her best when performing routines close to her heart. The laughs when she describes the rakish charms of North Melbourne are deep and genuine, but material about practical jokes she performs on herself and the Discovery Channel fail to r...

SAM SIMMONS IN THE NET STARRING SANDRA BULLOCK The Bosco, Melbourne City Square, until April 26 Tues - Sat 9.30pm, Sunday 8.30pm $19.90 - $24.00 Rating: **** Despite embracing narrative for the first time, the latest show from the loopy Sam Simmons has all the gleeful eccentricity his fans know and love. Adelaide, 1995: On the first day of his new job, stacking oranges into pyramids at a Coles supermarket in a suburban shopping mall, the teenage Simmons loses his heart to a Sandra Bullock lookalike working at the local KFC. He seeks romantic advice from an array of unlikely sources - an amateur magician, a goth stoner, a permanently happy Argentinean - and illustrates the unfolding of his romantic quest with surreal songs and an improbably illustrated flip-chart. Absurd and unpredictable, Simmons condenses more hilarity into an hour than most comedians could muster in a week. His adjective-laden material, which constantly detours into surreal territory, is a unique fusion of deadpan a...

My Contemptible Life in a Gutter of Abject Desolation By Andrew Lawrence Victoria Hotel - Vic's Bar, 215 Little Collins Street April 2 - 26, Tuesday - Saturday 8.15pm, Sunday 7.15pm $22.50 - $27.50 Rating: *** 1/2 Misanthropic Brit Andrew Lawrence was born for a career in stand up comedy. There are, after all, few other career options open when you're a bloodnut with "a face like a sex offender" (as Lawrence describes himself, and a voice like a frog on crack. In addition to humiliating himself for the audience's pleasure, Lawrence gleefully tackles some very dark material, including testicular cancer, sexual deviancy and alcoholism. His bleak outlook on life is delivered in a tirade of anecdotes and impersonations that spill from his mouth, leaving Lawrence barely enough room to draw breath before he launches into his next joke. Despite his apparent loathing for the bulk of humanity - the band Coldplay in particular - Lawrence is an engaging and skilled comedian...

Felicity Ward Melbourne Town Hall, to April 26, Tue-Sat 7.15pm, Sun 6.15pm $20 - $15 3.5/5 Award-winning comedian Felicity Ward redefines "self-deprecating" in her Melbourne International Comedy Festival debut. From sharing her cringe-worthy alcoholic misadventures, to awkward teenage angst poems, there is nowhere Ward will not go. Describing herself as "a 28 year old Nana waiting to happen", she mines an impoverished Woy Woy upbringing to devastating effect. Ward's timing is impeccable, and her deft portrayal of characters, including her eccentric mother, an alcoholic school councillor, and the Sexual Harassment Bunny (the Easter Bunny's evil twin) are a delight. She's also an adept musician. A simple set, decorated with a bed sheet adorned by old school photos and newspaper clippings, allows Ward to present, with a flourish, proof that she did once look "as ugly as a bulldog chewing on a wasp". Gentle audience engagement ensures that we...

At Melb Town Hall, to April 26, Tue-Sat 9.30pm, Sun 8.30pm $18 - $15 3.5/5 In these harsh economic times, you have to love a show which opens with a list of "Ten Alternative Ways To Start The Show", including a taped message from beyond the grave and a bonus Facebook joke. Talk about value for money! The List Operators - the acerbic Rich Higgins and the genial Matt Kelly - are a polished and accomplished duo with excellent comedic timing. Their material avoids all the usual pitfalls of sketch comedy. And they love lists. Lists of Matt's favourite fruit, for example, or countries it's ok to be racist about. The later is one of several sketches that require audience participation, although thankfully nothing too risky. Sublimely silly moments, such as "The Hello Sketch", are followed by Higgins' "semiotic, structuralist analysis of 'The Hello Sketch"'; clever shifts in tone and style which ensure this show never drags. Highly recommend...

Joseph (Jof) O'Farrell, Miles O'Neil and Glen Walton Melbourne Town Hall to April 26, Thu-Sat 10.50pm, Sun 9.50pm $20 - $15 4/5 In a distant galaxy, three intrepid astronauts - Kerry O'Brien, Chuck Norris and Kevin Bacon - seek the cure for mannequinitis, a deadly disease which is ravaging the cosmos. Victims of mannequinitis transmute into living plastic, a fate which has already befallen Bacon's friend and companion, Christoff. If more lives are to be saved, our heroes must overcome impossible odds - including mysterious aliens, cardboard sets, and the perils of deep space. As with last year's Golden Gibbo Award-winning The Ghosts of Ricketts Hill , the latest show from The Suitcase Royale - Joseph (Jof) O'Farrell, Miles O'Neil and Glen Walton - is a triumph of inventive lunacy. Ingeniously employed props and toys create theatrical illusions which are cinematic in scale. Mistakes and ad-libbing are swiftly adapted into the script. Laughs come thick and f...

Jamie Kilstein Melbourne Town Hall - Cloak Room April 2 until 26, Tuesday-Saturday, 8.15pm, Sunday 7.15pm, $28.50/$22.50 3/5 NEW YORKER Jamie Kilstein conducts a one-man war against the American Religious Right in this sincere, sometimes strident stand-up show. His loosely delivered, occasionally meandering routines about gays in the military, the funeral-picketing habits of the Westboro Baptist Church, and the political career of former Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin suffer when Kilstein has to pause and provide the back-story to his US-centric material; although the punchlines, when they come, are strong. Kilstein's funniest, most audacious material is saved for religious extremism. Fundamentalist Mormons, Islamicists, and God-fearing survivors of September 11 all cop a serve, although a new joke about the pro-Israel stance of left-leaning US politicians fell flat on Saturday night, prompting Kilstein to joke that it would probably be dropped from his show by Tuesday. ...

THE DELUSIONISTS IN BUNKER 5 Melbourne Town Hall, April 2 - 26, Tuesday-Saturday 6pm, Sunday 5pm.Tickets $19 - $15 Rating: 2.5/5 The Delusionists are an energetic quintet of young Sydney comedians whose undergraduate origins are still evident in this post-apocalyptic story of friendships, mayonnaise and mutants. In a labyrinthine bunker deep below the surface of the Earth, five survivors fend off boredom by playing virtual squash, squabbling over food rations and practising their contamination drills. Chaos threatens when the arrival of a three-armed stranger shifts the balance of their self-contained world. A distinct improvement over last year's Everything That Ever Happened, Ever (which was dragged down by its episodic structure and the weakness of the roles for the two female cast members) Bunker 5 sees The Delusionists playing to their strengths: sharply written scenes, the group's collective chemistry, and a well developed sense of the absurd. The second half of the s...

Only a week to go until the Doctor Who special 'The Planet of the Dead' airs in the UK at 7pm on Easter Saturday. I can't wait to see it - ahem, not that I would resort to downloading it via BitTorrent or anything illegal like that... Hopefully the ABC will fast track the episode, as they did (well, if you can call screening one month after the fact fast tracking) with the 2008 Christmas special, The Next Doctor . At the moment all that is known is that they'll screen it at some stage 'over Winter' - which doesn't sound like fasttracking to me. Time will tell. Appropriate for a show about a Time Lord, really... Anyway, if you haven't seen the trailer for Planet of the Dead yet, then behold: As for the remaining specials screening at Christmas this year and somewhere around New Year's Eve - which will culminate with David Tennant's Tenth Doctor regenerating into Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor - if you want some spoilers about what to expect, co...

THE COLORS INTERACTIVE COMEBACK SHOW Performed by Luke Dubber, Tom Fryer, Alon Ilsar, John Maddox and Erick Mitsak At Trades Hall, The Quilt Room, 2 Lygon Street, Carlton South April 1 – 12, 9.30pm $20 - $15 Rating: * Legendary New York band The Colors - a band obsessed by the interaction between live performers and audience to the point that they have never recorded an album – have been booked to play Down Under for the first time, and their fans have gathered to see them. But when the band doesn’t show, those same fans must play a desperate, shambolic gig in order to appease the audience. The central concept of The Colors Interactive Comeback Show is a fascinating one. A pity then that the idea goes nowhere, running out of steam 20 minutes into the show’s 75 minute running time. This is a classic example of a good idea that's desperately in search of a director or dramaturge to give it a suitably engaging structure. The interactive element consists of the audience selec...

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN COW Performed by Margaret Cameron and David Young At The Carlton Courthouse, 349 Drummond Street Carlton March 31 to April 11, Tues, Wed & Sun 6.30pm, Thur – Sat 8pm $25 - $12 Rating: *** A collaboration between writer/director/performer Margaret Cameron and composer David Young, So You Think You Can Cow is a conceptual comedy exploring the relationship between artist and observer. It’s also extremely funny. One by one, four audience members are escorted into the wings by Cameron while Young presents a surreal slide show of lifestyle tips and holiday snaps. When each participant returns – wearing a cow suit, dark glasses and headphones – they begin a surreal performance in response to instructions received through their headphones. Another set of instructions, layered over an inventive and engaging soundscape, is played for the audience. “Don’t think. This is culture! Say cow like wow!” are among the commands issued, as each...