MICF

MICF 2019 - Daniel Sloss - X

Exterior of Forum Theatre

Sunday 14th April 2019 - 8:00 pm - Forum Theatre

I really love the architecture of the Forum Theatre, and it looks like the last time that I've been within the main auditorium that they've done it up a bit, as it's looking proper fancy and gothic.



I've seen the last three of Daniel Sloss' shows; Dark, So? and Now.

At the start of the show there's a voice over that essentially says 'this show goes for 90 minutes, if you can't hold it in for that long and need to go to the loo during, you may have to watch the remainder from the standing room at the back of the theatre'.

From that position you might have noticed a sign, stuck to the doors, which I only noticed as I was exiting the theatre because someone in front of me pointed it out to their friend, it read; 'Warning this show contains coarse language and themes of sexual assault'. And that might have clued me and the audience into what this show would contain.

Sloss at one point describes his shows as "75 minutes of comedy and 15 minutes of a TED talk". And this is kinda true, although the TED talk remains filled with humorous observations.

There is less a concise narrative than previous shows I've seen of Sloss'.

But broadly it can be seen as; children (in a father, godfather, sibling context), masculinity and what that means now; along with masculinity in all its forms (including toxic) and how we relate to it, and at the end, sexual assault. 

The last subject is not a subject treated with mockery, it's one that is covered with seriousness, or something that is of realness, quite stark and grim, with humour, as life does.

Like his previous shows there's grim humour present, but it's different, a different sort of dark grim humour from his previous shows. 

Sloss drinks throughout the show, both water and a dark spirit, probably whisky. But he is forever and throughout the show a professional storyteller, performer and speaker of opinions. 

Each year Sloss develops and changes his comedy and his opinions. He's always thoroughly engaging.

MICF 2019 - Tom Allen - Absolutely

Sunday 14th April 2019 - 6:00 pm - Greek Centre - Mykonos


I'd seen Tom Allen on many a British panel show usually shown on ABC Comedy and thought he had a quick wit and sharp tongue.

Evidently lots of ABC-type audience also had seen him, the audience skewed upwards in age from mid-30s in Allen's show.

I wanted to like Allen's show. 

I got all the British references.

He's got a nice, posh-sounding voice.

His comedy is about his life and living in the lower class life that his accent doesn't suggest.

About the first 15 minutes of the show was doing the "who are you and what do you do" for everyone in the front row, not just one or two people – which I've seen comedians like Wil Anderson do that at their shows. However here there were at least 10-12 people in the front row (and indeed each row of the audience).

It provided some nice comedic riffing. But felt a bit like padding the show because it didn't help to feed into his story or show all that much.

I wanted to like his show, but...I just didn't.

There was just a little too much shouting about stuff.

There was lots of things, lots of tidbits of tales that were funny, but...I it just didn't gel for me. 

If I had been closer to the door, I think I might have made a respectful exit, and left the people who were there, who were enjoying it, to enjoy it. 

Unfortunately I was at the other side of the room to the door, I was at least on the end of the row, so people couldn't really see me not enjoying it.

It's not to say that I didn't find some parts funny, I did, but I didn't enjoy it. 

I think I would still say to people if they like what he does on TV, see him, I think they'd enjoy him, but I didn't.

MICF 2019 - The Male Gayz

Sunday 14th April 2019 - 4:30 pm, European Bier Cafe

I was already heading to the city to see two other comedy shows and was looking around at what else was on in the city and saw on Twitter that this was going to be on.

It was in the same room as The Little Dum Dum Club live podcast was held, although the audience was much more...compact.

It was kinda nice seeing a live podcast that was much more intimate with fewer people. I wouldn't say I've been seeing the Little Dum Dum Club live since they started doing live podcasts, but certainly seeing them in much smaller venues with much more intimate crowds in the audience. It's a much more raucous affair now that they've headliners of an international podcast festival.


The Male Gayz is a podcast where friends Eli Matthewson and Chris Parker have a chat. I like listening to it because it's funny and kinda calming, they're both New Zealanders and I kinda quite like their accent, it's nice, like being wrapped in a vocal hug.

This episode they were joined by Rhys Nicholson, who brought on with him a bowl of chips he'd been eating. I mention this only because he requested a table for the chips and was provided a stool, but did not eat any of the chips once he was provided with a stool for them.

All drinking white wine. Bowl of chips on its own stool.

This live recording was nice, funny, a little sad in places. Full of remembrances of growing up. Of white wine, parents and being caught watching porn. 

There's podcasts aplenty of the podcast and also video versions on YouTube that follow the same format as the podcast.

I think seeing live podcasts is a great way to see comedians during the festival unrehearsed, just chatting about stuff. It's a great and cheap way to get a sampling of them, without committing to go to a whole show.

MICF 2018 - Daniel Sloss - Now

8th April - 8 pm

ACMI - Cinema 2, Federation Square

Sloss's stage, inside ACMI Cinema 2. Sloss remarked 'the comfiest comedy venue'

I've seen Sloss for the past two years, his 'So?' show last year and 'Dark' the year before that.

Looking back at my previous write ups, trying to remind myself of the previous shows, and being a little annoyed that I've written them in such an oblique way as to not spoil anything, and therefore not too good at reminding myself of what they contained. I remember the gist, well enough.

Sloss's 'Now' has been promoted as him questioning whether or not he is a sociopath. I think Sloss is intelligent, his comedy certainly is.

On the concept of psychopaths vs sociopaths Sloss presents the concept that psychopaths are born, they learn how to manipulate emotions, while sociopaths are created by experiences. Sloss says there's 15 traits that help define a sociopath, he has 7.

Sloss moves through a series of observations and tales that, for me to try and summarise I think I would risk at repeating what he said or badly rewriting. He presents intelligently written comedy, from a youthful perspective that has a mature, nuanced perspective.

MICF 2018 - Completely Improvised Potter

8th April 2018 - 6 pm

Victorian Trades Hall, 54 Victoria Street, Carlton

I booked Completely Improvised Potter as I was looking for something to see between the Little Dum Dum Club and Daniel Sloss. I'd also seen Completely Improvised Potter advertised in previous comedy festivals and not gotten around to seeing it.

While you're standing in line you're given a piece of paper to suggest a title for the show, around which the completely improvised show is created from.

Unfortunately my piece of paper 'Harry Potter and the Paradigm of Sheet Music' was not chosen.

I did think that piece of paper specifying that "we prefer [ideas] that are not based on pop culture or infringe on other copyright property" was a little cheeky as their logo they used for their "Harry Potter and the" on their bit of paper is very likely copyrighted or at least trademarked. 

Everyone on stage is very capable improvisers, with some camping their performance up more than others, the camping up worked wonderfully evoking an almost panto quality to the performance.

There were some instances of various people prompting the story with a person entering and adding a random piece of information to the story or a "30 years ago..." segment to obviously give the performers something to add while prepping the next scene. 

Also much praise to the lighting and music techs as those two elements really helped placing the story and setting things up with musical cues.

In about an hour a full story was told with convincingly performed characters, and a story that was as concise as a fan fiction tale, but told before you.

I would definitely have seen it again had I been able to get up to the MICF again. Every performance would be different and it would be intriguing to see how much it changed night after night.

MICF 2018 - Little Dum Dum Club (2)

8th April 2018 - 3 pm

European Bier Cafe, 120 Exhibition Street, Melbourne

I didn't go to the first Little Dum Dum Club that happens to take place during April and is not connected to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (I gather there's monies exchanged if there's a link, be it web, verbal or otherwise). It was over the Easter break and I wasn't feeling amazing, after this week I caught a cold, so this was the only Dum Dum show I went to during the MICF.

This episode they had the audience fill out a survey when you came into the room, but aside from a couple of mentions never actually addressed the survey or anything that was written by the audience. Typically Dum Dum.

The guests on the show were: Hamish Blake, Dilruk Jayasinha and Brett Blake.

Dilruk was looking surprisingly svelte, supposedly weighing in under 100kg as a result of a wager on $1000.

Hamish Blake sported a beard.

Brett Blake recounted his recent journeys into court for 6 offences from jay walking to running a red light in a truck carrying a diesel generator.

MICF 2017 - Little Dum Dum Club (4)

Sunday 23rd April 2017 - 3:00 pm
European Bier Cafe

I decided not to stay for the Little Dum Dum Club Drunkcast, having been to the last few years’ Drunkcasts (2016 & 2014) I decided not to attend. They are fun, but as the Little Dum Dum Club begins at 3:00 pm that means there’s over 7 hours to kill, and as I’d seen all the comedy shows that I really wanted to see I decided not to remain.

But onto the final Little Dum Dum Club which took place during though no a part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2017.

The guests were; Nick Cody, Stuart Goldsmith and Nick Capper.

What I learnt from this podcast is that Nick Capper takes forever to tell a story. I’m not sure I ever want to hear him tell a story, ever.

Like many new guests to the podcast Stuart Goldsmith seemed a little taken aback by the adversarial nature of the live podcast environment. The gentle ribbing that Tommy and Karl give each other, the audience and their guests.

I’d not heard of Stuart Goldsmith and his podcast before, but it certainly sounds interesting, with him speaking with comedians about their craft and how they write.

In general it was a good episode of the podcast, Chandler didn’t read anything from VIPFAQ, but both he and Tommy did mock the blind and handicapped, so that’s another feature in the podcast’s cap of mocking marginalised people, all in the name of rifffing and comedyyyy.

One revelation during the podcast recording was that for the Drunkcast there was going to be costumes sourced from a costume shop in Airport West, so that should be interesting for those going to the Drunkcast, especially given the amazing musical number that last year’s Drunkcast had.

MICF 2017 - Eli Mathewson - The Year of Magical Fucking

One row from the stage

Sunday 10th April 2017 - 8:45 pm

I saw Eli Mathewson last year, it was actually in the same room as last year the “Carpet Room” with is an...intimate room. It’s tiny. All the seats are bench, though padded seats with about as much leg room as a church pew. Each pew could seat four people and there was maybe 6-8 rows.  

Eli suggests he’s worried that he’s losing his hair, he’s got a hat on, so it’s hard to tell.
His jokes and stories are a little disconnected throughout the show, with some role playing in the middle of the show that seems to act as a paragraph break between two halves of the show.

The first half of the show would be ‘establishing’, his character, his life so far, how he sees the world. The second half, I would group as ‘relationship’ and life, people who he slept, a French backpacker whom he slept with who thought he was in Lord of the Rings (the Two Towers Extended Edition). His story humorously moves to his current boyfriend and how they came to meet.

I wouldn’t say this show was on late, at 8:45 pm, but as I’d been in Melbourne since 3:00 pm for the Little Dum Dum Club it felt like it was. After it, had I known what it would be like, I’m not sure if I would have hung around for it. It’s not a negative per se on the show, it’s just in a time slot that is interesting as there’s nothing particularly confrontational or mature that would warrant a later time slot for the show.

MICF 2017 - Sarah Kendall - Shaken

Sunday 10th April 2017 - 7:30 pm

I didn’t like Sarah Kendall’s show to begin with and I think by the end I would say I’d warmed to her show, but not exactly heated through. Like a frozen meat pie thrown in the microwave with very little care to its position or time.

Kendall’s show is of a single lie with a small amount of truth in it. The framing device for this is seeing a therapist.
I feel like this element, the why she was seeing a therapist wasn’t really explained to the audience very well, there was a brief mention of her talking about her show last year, which might have given backstory to this fact but...I didn’t see her show last year and mostly just bought a ticket to her show because I recognised her name. For a moment I couldn’t recall where, but it was on Wil Anderson’s Wilosophy podcast. According to iTunes I listened to it, but don’t recall much, but I thought that was enough to take a punt and see her.
I just felt that the ‘therapist’ framing device, seemed...an interesting choice. It was to establish that the stories she tells are just that, stories, with a little hint of truth in it mixed up with embellishments and lies.

At the end, there were some characters who I wanted to be more fleshed out, the police sergeant especially, I wanted to know what happened to him.

Kendall’s show is a show about stories and lies. How they’re crafted and how they’re created, the power and the danger that breeds, and I imagine how that builds and creates a person. Some of the ideas I feel needed more of an exploration. I know that all comedians lie and craft stories, that what you see in a show isn’t the “truth” it’s a crafted experience. Kendall launches that at the start, with the therapist framing device, openly acknowledging that what she says has some bits of truth in it. But I also think this dichotomy of information presented means that you can’t fully engage with the story, even though if you’re not you’re assuming a multi-layer story. The reason I wonder this, is that Kendall establishes that her stories are fiction with a hint of truth. So it makes you wonder if the the “truth” is also fiction with a hint of truth, rather than true “truth”, which stopped me fully engaging with her story.

MICF 2017 - Daniel Sloss - So?

Sunday 10th April 2017 - 6:00 pm

Daniel Sloss’ show begins with a question, which none of the audience answered in the affirmative, which seemed to surprise Sloss, that no one would answer yes to this question, which helps to begin and frame his show.
The question which is “do you think you are a good person?”

He suggests he doesn’t think so, because of the bad things he thinks (although does not do).
But he doesn’t just restrict himself to this concept, he moves around through a variety of topics; vegans especially get a more than lengthy mention. Also liberals (in the small L sense not the Australian government sense), which leads into the concepts within the left the right politics wise and the odd position the right and left are in regarding acceptance within their respective ideologies. Along the way there’s some linguistics discussion which is really quite fascinating and interesting. Plus also discussion or what art and art reviewers have to contribute to the working experience of art.

Sloss’ show is deeply honest, a little bit dark, but not as complex as his show last year, which dealt in a strangely positive way with the death of his sister.

Sloss’ show “So?” is I think the most intelligent show I’ve seen so far, the most well thought out, he makes some great arguments. The show is well paced and when he starts he gets right into it with no distractions getting in the way of his performance. Sloss has a great confidence on stage, it brings the audience along with his performance.

I look forward to seeing what Sloss does next year.

MICF 2017 - Little Dum Dum Club (3)

Sunday 10th April 2017 - 3:00 pm

Tom Gleeson, Nazeem Hussain, Guy Montgomery. The guests this week on the Little Dum Dum Club, a live podcast not registered nor part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2017.

Tom Gleeson was either quite hot, quite sweaty or did not like the lights, because he seemed to be turning quite read and sweaty whilst giving Tommy and Karl a bit of a roast while on stage.

There were fewer visual jokes this week, so at least the audio version of the podcast will work. There was further exploration and attempt to nail down who the ‘New Zealand comedian who shit his pants and stole some at a comedy gig’ was.

But really, it was an hour of funny comedy which hadn’t been rehearsed and was all over the place.

MICF 2017 James Veitch - Dot Con

Sunday 9th April 2017 - 7:15 pm

I realised probably three quarters of the way through James Veitch’s “Dot Con” that I had seen a lot of what he was performing before. Either on YouTube or maybe some other comedy or British show, but I had seen his performance / presentation before.

Essentially his show is about replying to and taking up time of online scam artists; the “Nigerian prince” scam or the “I have X million of gold” or any of the “western union” scams.

Veitch puts his correspondence up on a digital projector and then performs what’s written on the screen. I don’t know how it could be done without it, but with it, you’re able to read along with him, and I’m not sure if this really helps the performance or not. I found it distracted from it a little bit as you’re reading along with him.

The last quarter of his show was the part I found most amusing, basically a development of the first 3/4 of the show, building on the concept of him ‘taking things too far’. It involves rubber ducks, and as he noted the audience laughs before he shows various images, cementing his point.

I enjoyed his performance and would like to see more of James Veitch even though this show didn’t completely grab me, I think he’s an engaging funny performer.

MICF 2017 - The Little Dum Dum Club (2)

Sunday 9th April 2017- 3:00 pm

The podcast began with a rather dark, but touching tale of a man who faced with visiting the Westgate and doing a June Northern turned to a mistaken email chain which quite possibly saved him.

White wine with ice

The guests were for this episode: Hamish Blake, Peter Helliar and Kitty Flanagan.
Kitty Flanagan was the only one who wasn’t aware of the podcast before coming on and I feel spent a lot of it on stage just in stunned awe.
From where I was sat, basically the same place as last week, maybe one more to the right (stage left) as she settled into her stool I could only see her shoes and her hands / mic for most of the time she was on stage.

"Andy Lee"

"Andy Lee"

There were some stories, some role playing and a guest appearance of “Andy Lee” (Greg Larsen).

Sunday’s live podcast was a little more tame, (relatively, for the Little Dum Dum Club) a bit more suicide, a little less racism than last week.

MICF 2017 Hannah Gadsby - Nanette

Sunday 2nd April - 6:00 pm

I wouldn’t recommend anyone seeing Hannah Gadsby’s show who hasn’t seen her previously and wasn’t familiar with her work. I also wouldn’t recommend seeing Gadsby if you’re looking for traditional comedy either.

I also wouldn’t recommend seeing if if you read her MICF show description.

All that said it’s...different, and it’s certainly an insightful, emotional performance.

There weren’t a lot of laughs in this show, and it covers several pretty rocky, mature and unfunny subjects.

I certainly admire Hannah Gadsby’s determinism, if this is the show she’s going to be performing throughout the MICF, because it’s heavy stuff. Heavy and perhaps cathartic? I’m not sure.

During the show I thought that maybe I’d classify it as slow burn or low key comedy, but the comedy was...somewhat lacking.

I once heard, I think Wil Anderson on a podcast say that comedians take real life, or real life events, or events that happened nearby to them and re-craft them, edit and finesse them and then that’s where you get a joke from.
Hannah Gadsby said in her show that a comedian injects anxiety into the room and then alleviates it with a joke. Except in her show, where the anxiety is just left hanging.
In this sense it felt a lot more like a lecture / monologue than a comedy show with structure or flow.

One part of the show that I did enjoy, and which Gadsby spoke with passion about was art history, cultural identifies and our perception of these. While not laugh a minute funny it was insightful and interesting.

Gadsby says something at the start of her show, that elicited a big ‘awww, no’ from the audience, and at the end it’s countered by a statement of ‘I’m just getting started’. At the end, coupled with this statement, Nanette, really seemed like a catharsis, an unloading of information, of thoughts and ideas, of pains and of history. There are passions that come through in the show, there is anger, frustration and there are some, fleeting moments of humour. It wasn’t what I was expecting and I wouldn’t see it again, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who’s looking for a night of comedy. But if you’re a fan of Hannah Gadsby it will certainly be insightful although not what you’d be expecting. I look forward to the future of Gadsby’s career, be it another different show or in another medium.

MICF 2017 - Little Dum Dum Club (1)

Sunday 2nd April 2017 - 3:00 pm

Nine minutes of a remix from the podcast of the two dickheads saying “dumb cunt”.

That’s how the podcast began, which meant that they got onto the stage nine minutes late.

The guests were: Wil Anderson, Dilruk Jayasinha and Stephen K. Amos, plus a last minute appearance by Xavier Michelides for “Xavier’s Corner”.

Live podcast recordings, no matter which one are usually really good value, amazingly so. You’re at least getting three, usually more than that on stage for an hour. It’s unscripted, unwritten and really quite good. It’s often a bit unexpected and kinda like a TV show you need to listen to a few episodes back before seeing it to get the in jokes.

Such as the Koh Samui International Podcast Festival, for which you could buy t-shirts to support, also known as Karl Chandler’s excuse to go on (another) holiday to Thailand. Supposedly 75 people have said they would be going, I am not one of them.

The stage awaiting the arrival of the "dumb cunts"

While I’ve titled this as being part of the MICF 2017, it isn’t, well, not technically, it’s not listed on the comedyfestival.com.au website and it’s not promoted as being a part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. It just happens to be taking place during April which coincidentally is when the MICF is on. I imagine it’s a cost thing, the MICF would charge cash to be listed on their website, to go in their little booklet etc.
In previous years I know it was, but this year, with the season passes selling out and the room looking pretty packed I would imagine that there’s enough word of mouth for them not to need to be within the MICF’s guises.
You can book through the Little Dum Dum Club website they use TryBooking rather than Ticketmaster, for the Little Dum Dum Club and for Tommy Dassalo and Karl Chandler’s own shows, again I gather from their diatribe on the Little Dum Dum Club this is a cost thing with Ticketmaster taking a fairly sizeable chunk.

MICF 2016 - The Little Dum Dum Club DrunkCast™

Sunday 17th April 2016 - 10:30 pm

There’s an episode of Married... With Children, which according to the Married... With Children Wiki is called “Take My Wife, Please”, it featured the main cast dressing up as The Village People and singing YMCA over and over again.

That episode was what came to my mind upon seeing Tommy Dassalo, Karl Chandler, Josh Earl, Nick Cody and Dilruk Jayasinha walk out onto stage.

Karl and Tommy had supposedly prepared for 2 days prior to get costumed and write lyrics, or rewrite lyrics to YMCA.

They performed the song more than once, and it was only after multiple listens did I actually hear most of the lyrics. In the lyrics there was mention of Karl Chandler’s phone number, chocolate mousse the phrase ‘Hey Mates’. Both his phone number and the ‘Hey Mates’ was in place of the YMCA part of the song.

Before the DrunkCast got started proper the crowd was already quite raucous, but I was glad that I had a seat, it was on the isle and that it was padded (the seats 2 years ago weren’t and my arse was sore near the end).

The start of the DrunkCast™

The start of the DrunkCast™

The DrunkCast was somewhat (very) shambolic, it was very much a case of all the comedians letting go.

Around maybe half of the way through the DrunkCast Dilruk tried to take over hosting duties, as he appeared to be one of the least drunk comedians at the drunk cast. It was also something of a sausage fest, the only two female comedians present were Demi Lardner and Celia Pacquola.

The beginning of the end of the DrunkCast™

The beginning of the end of the DrunkCast™

Around 3/4 of the way through things began to take a somewhat raunchier tone.
Mostly a lot of nudity courtesy of Nick Cody (exposing a testicle) and Daniel Sloss, wearing a kilt the way a Scotsman should; with nothing underneath. Revealing, at one point all to the crowd.

The end of the DrunkCast™

The end of the DrunkCast™

Then, after that point nearing the end, things took an even more raunchy tone.
It was kinda like, if someone was writing slash fan fiction involving a variety of comedians and then just got bored and said ‘and now they kiss’. There was lots of man-on-man kissing, it all looked unexpected, but very...theatrical. Except with lots of tongues.
Also Tom Ballard got underneath Daniel Sloss’ kilt.
At the very end everyone was trying to dack Karl Chandler, Adam Richard seemed to succeed, though I only realised this after reviewing my photos from the night.

The final end of the DrunkCast™ with Adam Richard succeeding in dacking Chandler

The final end of the DrunkCast™ with Adam Richard succeeding in dacking Chandler

MICF 2016 - Tommy Dassalo - “Little Golden Dassalo”

Sunday 17th April 2016 - 8:45 pm

I arrived to Tommy Dassalo’s show having left Felicity Ward’s show early, well I walked out of it early, not just to get to Tommy’s show.

“Little Golden Dassalo” is something different from Dasslo’s other shows from previous years, although in some ways there is a theatricality to this show that in little parts has built from previous shows in the past.

I think it was in his 2014 show “Dreamboat” which he also had a bit of audience interaction in them throwing stuff at him near the end.

In this show there is a whole book for people to read with along while he performs his show. I admire his confidence to give people a book to read while he performs, as surely that would mean that people aren’t giving him their utmost attention, if they’re looking down at the book.

In some parts I already knew the story behind the story of this show, because Tommy had talked about it in various bits and pieces on his podcast “The Little Dum Dum Club”. But the podcast in retrospect was like the ‘special features’ to this show. I already knew some of the stuff that was being performed, but here in his show Tommy has crafted and scripted and polished into a narrative story of its own.

I really enjoyed Tommy Dassalo’s show, for the comedy, for the humour and for the theatricality that it had, this theatrical element set it in a different league from the other shows I saw this comedy festival. I’ll definitely be seeing his show next year, as, I’ve seen his show for the past couple of years, and each year it’s developed and built upon previous shows. In both stories told and the actual performance of it, it’s developed and changed.

MICF 2016 - Felicity Ward - “What If There Is No Toilet”

Sunday 17th April 2016 - 7:30 pm

Felicity Ward’s show is about mental illness and irritable bowel syndrome. Two things which some might squirm at being mocked, though Felicity reassures the audience that it’s okay to laugh at it. They’re true, taken from her life. It’s something I like, true or at least sourced from the truth, comedy.

I was seated in the front row, a mistake that I would later find was something of a mistake, though fortunately at the end of the front row.

There were a lot of concepts and information in this show that I’m sure people with a mental illness would immediately identify with. I was familiar with many of them, mostly due to family and friends talking about things like that, and from donkey’s years ago when I studied psychology in high school. I could understand a lot of the things Felicity talks about, personally I’ve never felt the levels of anxiety she describes in her show, but she makes it very real.

There’s some great production / direction from her crew, with changes in lighting when she goes ‘inside’ Beryl, and with her facial expressions it really sells Beryl as a unique complicated and terrible personality lurking within Felicity.

Around 3/4 of the way through the show I was looking at my watch, because I was thinking of going to Tommy Dassalo’s show, which was at 195 Swanston Street in the Downstairs Lounge of the The Grand Mercure Hotel. I’d walked from there down to the ACMI Cube where Felicity’s show was to test how long it took, 10 minutes, it’d take maybe a little longer up hill. So I was hoping the show would finish on time.

As the end of the show came Felicity talks about how she’s spiritual, though not religious. This leads into her hanging up a board of religious lyrics. I want to say the song was called ‘Father Brown’, but I know it isn’t because that’s a TV show. But it’s close enough, she then explains she / we’re going to have a sing along, so she hangs up some lyrics and gets everyone to stand up.
At this point I think that she’s just going to just sing and dance to the audience.
She says something like ‘I promise it’s not religious’.
Then she starts to shout, encouraging everyone to sing with her, punching your hands into the air.
Now, at this point I wasn’t the only one not singing and waving my hands around (probably), I was definitely not the only person in the front row now doing it. One other guy wasn’t doing it, but was shouted at by Felicity.
I thought ‘no, I’m going to hold steadfast, she’s not...oh wait’, so, I did not have my arms crossed, I had my thumbs hooked into the pockets of my jeans. Not singing and not waving my arms around either.
Felicity said something along the lines of ‘come on...’ I did not want to disrupt her final show of the comedy festival, nor did I want to disrupt the rest of the audience’s fun by doing anything that would disrupt things, so I just gave her a slow shake of the head, hoping that would be the end of it.
Nope.
She was still on stage, but she was able to get quite close, me being tall and her bending down she was face to face with me. Enough that all I recall at this point was her face and hat framed in my vision.
I decided I’d had enough, I wasn’t going to be bullied into doing anything, especially as I’d paid to be there and I wanted to leave to get to Tommy Dassalo’s show. So I gave her a small wave and I think even a smile and walked out of the show.
I recall some people making ‘aww, no’ some noises, but kept my gaze on the wall and ahead to the door and walked out.

 

 

MICF 2016 - The Little Dum Dum Club (4)

Sunday 17th April 2016 - 3:00 pm

The final recorded live podcast of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival of 2016.

The guests were Wil Anderson, Anne Edmonds and an American comedian, who heckled Karl’s show the previous night, who Karl hadn’t seen for 2 years prior to that point.
I’m sure his name will be in the podcast when it comes out and I’ll fix this post then, but I do not recall what his name was.

Wil Anderson arrived on stage wearing one of the Dum Dum Club’s “I’m Aware of the Little Dum Dum Club” hoodies.

This podcast they decided not to do the thing, which every other show they’ve done, and that’s to get the guests to move along one seat, which always seems to confuse everyone. Probably because Tommy and Karl don’t explain this.
The way it should happen is that each new guest ends up sitting next to Tommy and everyone moves to the stage left (audience right) by one seat, this time they were all seated in the way they came on to stage.

One thing that was discussed, brought up tangentially by Wil was that how at some point in the future when someone searches for the Westgate Bridge, the Little Dum Dum Club comes up instead of the website for the Westgate Bridge. In the same way that now if you search for ‘tofo-‘ TOFOP comes up rather than TOFOG Russell Crowe’s band which the podcast is named for.
For that to happen, I think both Tommy and Karl and the fans will have to work a little harder to make that happen.

End of the fourth Little Dum Dum Club MICF live recording 2016

End of the fourth Little Dum Dum Club MICF live recording 2016

During the podcast recording it looked like Tommy, Karl and Wil all got through 2 pints of beer each.
I’m not sure how they’re about to put away that much beer than a few hours later do a show, just the remembering stuff and what to do must be a little bit taxing after a few beers. Or perhaps not, maybe in the comedy environment you learn how to carry your alcohol.

MICF 2016 - Guy Montgomery - "Guy Montcomedy"

Sunday 10th April 2016 - 6:15 pm

At past MICFs I had been finding a whole lot of comedians I wanted to see and filled up my schedule to see as many as I could on the days that I was up in Melbourne, typically the weekend because I had season passes to podcasts.

This year I only decided to buy a season pass only to The Little Dum Dum Club.
There’s also been few comedians I really wanted to see.
So instead I’ve been going up, seeing The Little Dum Dum Club and then deciding if I wanted to see anything else while I was up in the city.

Which basically means I look through the website/guide for anything on from 6 pm - 7 pm, because after 4 pm when The Little Dum Dum Club finishes I don’t want to hang around in the city forever.

Forgot to take photos inside the venue, this I took after the show

Forgot to take photos inside the venue, this I took after the show

I chose Guy Montgomery because his show was on at 6:15 pm, it was in the Forum Theatre (and therefore close to where I’d parked at Federation Square) and because he was a New Zealander. As since it’s the Melbourne International Comedy Festival I figured I should see some international comedians.

There’s some things I like when I see comedians.
Narrative comedy.
Some semblance of truth.

Neither of these were in Guy Montgomery’s show "Guy Montcomedy".

He also picked on me, though I was in the middle front row, so that’s to be expected. I tried not giving him much as I thought he just wanted to kill some dead air in the room.
But he came back at me more than once. So I admit I did challenge him / heckle him a little bit.

Looking up at him was a little straining on the eyes, I’ll admit that, my fault for sitting in the front row.

But he did keep me engaged, even if not everything was immediately amusing.

He’s a somewhat physical performer, using the small stage.
He also revealed that the room he’d performing in the Forum Theatre “Pizza Room” is indeed a room, with a pizza oven in it and it weirdly forms part of his act in a sort of tangential sort of way.