2008

Adelaide Fringe 2008
Comedy
Rove McManus

Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide
March 15.
Melbourne Comedy Festival
Melbourne Town Hall
April 10-12. Tickets $39.90 – $ 44.50.

On stage for Rove McManus’s stand-up gig at the Thebarton Theatre is a giant picture of a goldfish in a bowl. The fish has large Disney eyes and extruding from its tail, in streaming black calligraphy comes Rove’s famous name. It is a joke very much at his own expense and it is a likeable …

Back with a Vengeance
Barry Humphries

Her Majesty
June 29.
Until July 7, 2007

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Barry Humphries is celebrating fifty years as a music hall artiste. In 1957 Mrs Everage from Moonie Ponds first peered around the door with her beady eyes and imperious curiosity to say hello. She really was a housewife then, with dull straight hair and a drab cloth coat, but she knew aqua from duck-egg blue and of course, her prudery and pretensions …

2005

The Pleasure of Their Company

Shaun Micallef and Glynn Nicholas

The Arts Theatre

Murray Bramwell

There have been plenty of comedy double acts in recent times – HG and Roy, John Clarke and Bryan Dawe, Mick Molloy and Tony Martin, to name just a few. But, on first glance, Glynn Nicholas and Shaun Micallef seem an unlikely combination. For a start, Nicholas has forged a very successful career as a solo comic with a memorable range of signature characters …

Adelaide Fringe March 2004

Murray Bramwell

There is nothing like a visit to a psychic to give your brain a tweak and that is exactly what Michael Santos is here to do. Or maybe he will just do your head in. With Sidekick Bernard and not-very-subtle audience plant, Raymond, Santos (aka David Sant) is the Mindbender, reaching into the audience to tell us – Raymond’s radio mike permitting – our names, addresses and our deepest thoughts. It is hilariously cheesy …

2003
Back to My Roots and Other Suckers
Barry Humphries
Her Majesty’s

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Barry Humphries is not only back to his roots but also quite a few of his old tricks. Playing to full houses for a short season at Her Majesty’s, Humphries has rounded up the usual suspects for our delectation and occasional panic. These now include somebody called Barry Humphries. Not the Barry Humphries I shouldn’t think, but a simulacrum who, last time around, appeared …

15 February, 2002.
Murray Bramwell

Partly It’s About Love…Partly It’s About Massacre
by Fiona Sprott. Savage Wit and Vitalstatistix.
The Bakehouse, Adelaide. Until 16 March.
Tickets $18, $12 . Bookings FringeTIX (08) 8201 4567

Jezebel is back, not so much with a vengeance – although first-degree butter knife wounds are involved here – but with a story to tell about her heart, her hormones and the deep ambivalence of commitment. Jezebel is the creation of writer Fiona Sprott and actor …

1999
Remember You’re Out
Barry Humphries

Her Majesty’s

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

The heavy red curtain rises on Her Majesty’s elderly stage, the auditorium is flooded with digitally-operated blue light and, through the blinding haze, Barry Humphries clambers out of a camphor glory box. It is an extravagant entrance for the shy, retiring Mr Humphries, a comic artist who prefers to communicate through proxies and intermediaries. But for his new show, Remember You’re Out, he is making an exception. Perhaps …

Murray Bramwell

There may not be a Fringe this year but there is still going to be some Autumn comedy. The Big Laugh festival organised by the Adelaide Festival Centre is bringing back some familiar faces and more than a few toothy smiles.

Running for a couple of weeks is The Complete Works of Shakespeare. All thirty seven plays in ninety seven minutes. Compiled by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield, originally known as the Reduced Theatre Company, this …