From the get-go Hello Boys fills out the Blue Room studio with the resounding guffaws of audience members relating the anecdotes on stage to stories in their own lives, full of (not-so) discrete nudges between partners in seats as onstage a seemingly endless cue of disaster dates are re-enacted; penis and vagina jokes are made with politically correct equality … yes it’s that type of show.
We follow four mid-20-somethings through their quests to make it out of the dating world alive, hopefully with somebody else clinging to the wreckage, from a Nightclub in Northbridge to the nudist beach in Swanbourne.
The cast performs with great commitment and comic ability. Natalie Di Risio as Eve is most notable for the buoyancy and energy with which she injects all of her scenes, but each of the ensemble performs amiably.
Under the direction of Ian Toyne, the physical movement in the piece is compact and effective.
The show’s only flat moment comes in a strange, drawn-out section wherein the girls conjure different men they have met from around the globe, seemingly there to give the boys a chance to show us all of the accents they can do. It is the only off moment in what is otherwise a consistently humorous affair about dating, sex and the perils of coffee.
Preceded by the ensemble’s hilarious physicalisation of the female reproductive system, Hello Boys finishes with a cute and neat ending to the dating cycle that creates a sense of structure in what is otherwise a loosely connected series of comic vignettes.
A good old bit of fun, which (if last night is anything to go by) is sure to be a crowd pleaser.
Hello Boys is showing at the Blue Room, starts at 7.30 and runs until Friday. Tickets are available from www.fringeworld.com.au.
On the Thursday and Friday the show is followed by an optional speed dating session for $40, which I am sad to say wasn’t available on the monday and so I missed the opportunity to review potential dates… Oh well.