Finding something that really makes you laugh - not just snicker or recognise something as funny but actually laugh spontaneously – can be hard. With most of the TV shows, books or movies I find funny I’ve seen or read them so many times that I know when the jokes are coming and it’s hard to get the same laugh-until-you-cry result that I had when I first saw it. There is the odd new(ish) movie (say Knocked Up) or TV show (“sometimes I put a wig on you…”) that does it for me but the best laughs, I find, come when you least expect them.
So I was very pleasantly surprised by a four man show I saw at the Blue Room last night - even more so because I didn’t really see it coming. The show, This is Your Life (Sort of), starred some local comedians, two of whom I happen to have gone to school with. I’d done a story on it and it was billed to me as Thank God You're Here meets Australian Story. So it sounded encouraging but I was nervous about watching people I knew on stage in case the show was really bad and I would never be able to mention that fact to them for the rest of our natural lives. Luckily for me, and for them, I laughed. Rather a lot. And so did everyone else.
I've never seen much theatre sports but the concept - that the actors take queues from the audience and each other about what their next scene or song should be about - is a cute one and makes the whole thing feel quite relaxed and casual. It is almost as amusing to see them come up with something truly awesome as it is to watch them nearly crack up, misread each others queues or (in one case last night) do an impression of Dr House which nobody else onstage appears to recognise. At times it was all a bit too silly or it didn't do it for me but most of the time it felt like hanging out with some extremely amusing friends and not having to do any of the talking.
The show walks the audience through some of the seminal events in audience member’s lives, using Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man as a guide, so although it follows the same structure the content of each show is different to the night before and the night after. Last night we had a long (as Lindsay said that particular audience member had been waiting a looong time to tell her story) love story acted out against a backdrop of inviting ants, some creepy wigs, rock licking and a bunch of other stuff that made me laugh until I cried at the time but which is surely one of those you-had-to-be-there sort of things. I have no idea what kind of topics they’ll be covering for the remaining two weeks of the show’s run but if you want to find out bookings are through here.
So I was very pleasantly surprised by a four man show I saw at the Blue Room last night - even more so because I didn’t really see it coming. The show, This is Your Life (Sort of), starred some local comedians, two of whom I happen to have gone to school with. I’d done a story on it and it was billed to me as Thank God You're Here meets Australian Story. So it sounded encouraging but I was nervous about watching people I knew on stage in case the show was really bad and I would never be able to mention that fact to them for the rest of our natural lives. Luckily for me, and for them, I laughed. Rather a lot. And so did everyone else.
I've never seen much theatre sports but the concept - that the actors take queues from the audience and each other about what their next scene or song should be about - is a cute one and makes the whole thing feel quite relaxed and casual. It is almost as amusing to see them come up with something truly awesome as it is to watch them nearly crack up, misread each others queues or (in one case last night) do an impression of Dr House which nobody else onstage appears to recognise. At times it was all a bit too silly or it didn't do it for me but most of the time it felt like hanging out with some extremely amusing friends and not having to do any of the talking.
The show walks the audience through some of the seminal events in audience member’s lives, using Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man as a guide, so although it follows the same structure the content of each show is different to the night before and the night after. Last night we had a long (as Lindsay said that particular audience member had been waiting a looong time to tell her story) love story acted out against a backdrop of inviting ants, some creepy wigs, rock licking and a bunch of other stuff that made me laugh until I cried at the time but which is surely one of those you-had-to-be-there sort of things. I have no idea what kind of topics they’ll be covering for the remaining two weeks of the show’s run but if you want to find out bookings are through here.
1 comment:
Not as cringeworthy as we suspected. Damn fine good. Apart from that crazy chick - although she kind of made it.
L x
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