2007

March 29
Adelaide

Adelaide Fringe 07
Mutzenball
by Little Black Box
Fringe Factory
Until March 31`
Tickets: $ 20. Bookings at Fringetix. Ph.8418 8666

B File
by Deborah Levy
Stone/Castro Company
Holden Street Theatre
March 26

Ross Noble – Fizzy Logic
Royalty Theatre until March 31
Tickets: $ 40. Bookings at Fringetix. Ph.8418 8666
Melbourne International Comedy Festival
April 5 – 21. Ticketmaster 1300 660 013

Mark Watson
Nova Cinema 2 until March 31
Tickets: $29. Bookings at Fringetix. Ph.8418 8666
Melbourne International Comedy Festival
April 5 – 29. Ticketmaster 1300 660 013

Ardal O’Hanlon
Nova Cinema 2 until March 31.
Tickets: $ 29.
Bookings at Fringetix. Ph.8418 8666
Melbourne International Comedy Festival
April 5 – 29. Ticketmaster 1300 660 013

Fiona O’Loughlin
Nova Cinema 2 until March 31.
Tickets: $29.90. Bookings at Fringetix. Ph.8418 8666
Melbourne International Comedy Festival
April 5 – 29. Ticketmaster 1300 660 013

The Adelaide Fringe is rolling into its final weekend and newly appointed Artistic Director, Christie Anthoney, can now enjoy the ride. The shift to annual rotation has had its pressures but even by the midway point the Fringe was registering target sales of a hundred thousand tickets. Its claim to being the biggest such event outside Edinburgh still conspicuously stands, with the flow of registrations proving almost as strong as last year. But without the Adelaide Festival to provide that solid presence against which the Fringe can play the noisy younger sibling, the sprawling, amorphous nature of the event is more evident than usual.

Characterising the Fringe is reminiscent of the three blind men each claiming to describe an elephant. With so many aspects to the program – comedy, cabaret, theatre, music, literature, visual arts, kids’ programs and other specialties – it is hard to know which part of the pachyderm one is talking about. It might be a large ear, a leg, or, as is sometimes the case, something perilously close to the tail.

Uncurated and – unlike the Festival – unable to provide direct support to participants, the Fringe is hostage to the goodwill, optimism and resourcefulness of its participants. As in Edinburgh, the comedy cohort, many of them very familiar suspects from radio and TV, can count on celebrity to sell tickets for shows getting match fit for the Melbourne Comedy Festival. For theatre companies, it is a tougher deal and, in past years, some have crashed and burned for want of audiences. This year, the Holden Street Theatres proved a successful venue, and the Black Lung Theatre reached near cult status with its season in temporary digs in a gamy part of Hindley Street. But the theatre offerings, with notable exceptions, have been strong on determination and enthusiasm and short on polish, worldliness and flair.

Usually there are headliners from Edinburgh to set some pace. This time, the excellent Guy Masterson has obliged with his Dylan Thomas shows and Irish actor, Aidan Dooley, with his memorable account of unsung Antarctic hero, Tom Crean. But such actorly shows have been fewer – and in 2009 let’s hope they will be more plentiful. Instead, local and interstate companies, such as Black Lung, Ignite, My Darling Patricia and Little Black Box have opted for more experimental, intuitive and, sometimes, roughly formed offerings.

Mutzenball, a lively late night cabaret, directed by Daisy Brown and propelled by musician Mario Spate features revelations, meditations and accusations on the sex lives of four performers who pout, squirm and simulate but also reflect on doubts, anxieties and inhibitions in ways that suggest Gen Y, also, has as many questions as it has answers.

.Stone/Castro bring menace and humour in a disturbing mix to B File, a series of skits where two border guards question three women – all called Beatrice – in passport checks which turn into interrogations in multiple languages, misleadingly translated and spiraling each of the bewildered travelers into Kafkaesque anxiety. Crisply directed by Paulo Castro and featuring Jo Stone, Paolo Dos Sandos and Karen Lawrence, B File is a timely venture into the political absurd.

The comedy in the Fringe (or at least my part of the elephant – there were about a hundred listings) is determinedly personal and anecdotal rather than global and political. Although, the centrifugal energy of Ross Noble’s fizzy logic seems to leap buildings in a single bound. With a snazzy decor of huge silver inflatable spheres – atoms ? He refers to them as bollocks – Noble could be fronting a TV science show. He is a nimble, witty talent and his two hour odyssey is an audience delight .

Diffidence is a frequent, but risky, comic strategy and, first time touring here, Welshman Mark Watson is testing it with Australian audiences. He finds rapport, when describing muggers who call him mate and beggars who ask for more than a pound. But he can’t find anyone with a watch who can tell the correct time and wonders aloud why his gryphon joke doesn’t work. He is bookish, mild and his comedy has a likeable slow fuse.

Father Dougal McGuire, known to viewers of Father Ted as the most gormless priest in Christendom, is the alter ego of Ardal O’Hanlon who, while using the occasional Dougal blank look, is an altogether more querulous character with plenty to say on wives, mothers and the Pope, as well as canine jokes for Inky the guide dog in the audience. Personable in his crankiness, O’Hanlon is instructively funny on bubble wrap, Irish folktales and the lifecycle of pyjamas.

Also outstanding on domestic detail is Alice Springs mother of five – “don’t expect me to name them off the top of my head” – Fiona O’Loughlin, whose cheerful confessions of maternal negligence and cigarette and vodka delinquency are like a get-out-of-jail card to audiences, especially women, who find this deliciously poised comedy exhilarating in its irreverence.

Murray Bramwell

“Thriving outside Festival’s shadow” The Australian, March 30, 2007, p.16.