Adam Peter Scott: Straight To Video

Pho Barn @ Noodle Palace

Review: Jasmine Seabrook-Benson

The lights dim, and within moments of his entrance from the side of stage, Adam Peter Scott is amusing us with his eloquent, dry, and relaxed observational wit.

Straight To Video, a stand-up show about movies, is also about the self-proclaimed nerd performing it. He admits that the concept wasn’t always concrete, but he had no trouble identifying what he didn’t want this show to be: a straight white man, with a middle class suburban upbringing, reflecting on things that don’t affect him.

With trademark self-deprecating humour, Scott explains that his privileged place in society leaves him with very little to reflect meaningfully upon. He talks us through his soul-searching struggle to identify a topic that he could discuss genuinely. A Netflix binge holds the key. Growing up as what he terms an ‘inside kid’, the best topic for him is movies.

It’s immediately clear that Scott has a love/hate relationship with this medium of entertainment. Identifying the logical inconsistencies in genres such as romantic comedy, crime and spy movies, he illustrates his point with impassioned rants that show us where real-life and movies disconnect.

Throwing some political comedy into the mix, Scott digresses. He provides entertaining personal anecdotes along with his analysis of Australian society. Going on to discuss Reclaim Australia, he makes a salient point: people can’t be converted to any religion if they don’t want to be. His conclusion that “Muslims aren’t vampires” set a wave of appreciative laughter rippling through the room. And, bringing us back to the topic of movies, he thrilled us with the absurdly amusing concept of a Reclaim Australia-themed Twilight.

Thursday night’s performance provided us with a small glimpse of Scott’s ability to negotiate challenging circumstances. His admirably gracious negotiation of difficulties created by two audience members who didn’t appear to be there to listen to (nor watch) the show was impressive. Pleasingly, his genuine desire for everyone to have a good time held things together.

As the show neared its conclusion, Scott revealed to us a concept for a movie that he could have a love/love relationship with. Evidently, he was quite a fan of Captain Planet as a child, and his pitch for a gritty reboot is so intriguing that you’ll leave the venue desperately wishing that it had been given the green light.

Adam Peter Scott: Straight To Video runs 17-20 February at the Pho Barn at Noodle Palace, Francis Street, Perth. Tickets available here.

Presented by  Tomás Ford, Captain of Industry

Bok Choy Ballroom

Review by Jasmine Seabrook-Benson

Tomás Ford is surely the only man that can simultaneously embody the maniacal scientist while keeping his audience on side. The room is full of love as Ford – in patchwork Hi Vis jacket – gets the music pumping, does some high kicks, and chats with us.

Tomás Ford’s Craptacular! delivers the madness of the award-winning cabaret artist’s Electric Cabaret with the guilty pleasure of Crap Music Rave Party. As Ford sings, shrieks, breaks down and bounces back, the audience laughs, sings along, engages in intense eye contact, and generally embraces the weirdness.

Songs such as “Hello”, “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head”, “I Gotta Feelin’”, and “True Blue” are performed with the vigor of someone who truly loves them. But, as he tells us, and words on screen remind us, Ford really does hate them. To him, they’re the “worst songs of all time”.

Ford is not the kind of performer that stays on stage, rigid and remote. This guy is all over the room. He’s on chairs, on laps and charging down the aisle. Costume changes are rapid. The roadhouse tea towel jacket is truly special, but the makeshift apron – created with the assistance of a keen audience member – is the winner.

You may be wondering why he needs an apron. Well, Ford gets spectacularly wet during one song. It’s hilarious, and the orange rubbish bag taped to his front is only barely effective. Yes, he also shares the dampness, but only in the form of a hair flick here and there.

This is a juggernaut of a performance. Set against the ramshackle backdrop of packing boxes and askew projector screen, it is relentlessly energising. You get the sense that nothing could impede it.

Ford’s trademark move of leading – and singing – the audience out of the venue at the end of the show has us gathered together in the courtyard. We’re happy, he is happy, and with a little encouragement from the crowd, he treats us to a serenade that connects everyone in joyous rapture.

This is a thrilling performance that only Tomás Ford could deliver. Guaranteed to enthrall, horrify, and delight, it is not to be missed.

Tomás Ford’s Craptacular! runs February 10-13 and 17-20 in the Bok Choy Ballroom at Noodle Palace, Francis Street, Perth. Tickets available via www.fringeworld.com.au

Paul Bourke

Laksa Lounge @ Noodle Palace

Author and interviewer: Jasmine Seabrook-Benson

Vladimir the Crow arrived at Fringe World Perth with a rather pale complexion — not so outstanding in his world of vampires, werewolves, ghosts and ghouls — and a bubbling enthusiasm to connect with the humans he adores so much.

Paul Bourke’s solo performance in Vladimir the Crow – Whispering Ghoul has wowed audiences with its hybrid style and unique approach. The show incorporates theatre’s capacity to “be both visual and sonic in its composition” while allowing the performer and audience to have a direct connection. Bourke enjoys “taking a very physical and imagination driven approach to creating theatre and theatrical characters”, which is exemplified in this show.

Whispering Ghoul is a production that Bourke has been keen to create for quite some time. As someone who was inspired by clown theatre as well as classic horror, a performance that combines the two is a dream come true. “I wanted to create something which I would love to perform, something that I felt I, as an audience, would enjoy to see and experience.”

Clown theatre has a magical quality for Bourke, which is what inspired him to focus on it as a performer. “Every process is different and like starting from scratch again,” he reflects. “But for me all processes have a period of feeling lost and overwhelmed. I believe in following impulses and feelings when creating work and am always amazed and relieved when, out of the wilderness, all the materials being generated begin to resonate, meld and build to make a certain kind of sense, sensation, world and feeling.”

Vladimir the Crow “is mostly a clown character, with a dash of bouffon”, performance styles which Bourke observes, “exist a little bit outside where normal acting and the general rules of theatre sit”.

He explains that he’s drawn to these forms “because a big feature of both styles is their direct contact with the audience, the removal of the fourth wall so to speak”. This produces a sense “that the character created is living, seeing, hearing and breathing in the room, aware and responsive to the audience”. It “has a certain fun and danger to it.”

“Bouffon is a grotesque style of clowning which parodies society and holds up a mirror. Bouffons as characters have a genuine desire to mock their audience and shoot daggers at them from their eyes. I love to play this style, but deep down I feel I have a clown heart.”

Vladimir the Crow is also a clown at heart. He is humble, playful, and genuinely fascinated by humans. The show is, for him, an excuse to connect with and show off to the mortals he is in awe of.

“I want the audience to walk away buzzing and resonant with a sense of being both light and dark, human beings beautiful in all their imperfections”.

Vladimir the Crow – Whispering Ghoul ran from January 22-23 and 27-30 in Laksa Lounge at Noodle Palace, Francis Street, Perth.

Presented by Flash in the Can

Circus Theatre

Review by Jasmine Seabrook-Benson

Perth audiences are guaranteed an ever-so-proper greeting with this show. As you enter the Circus Theatre, you encounter the show’s performers as your personal ushers; they shake your hand, direct you towards your seat, and wish you a good evening.

On stage is an armchair in the floral print most would associate with their grandmothers. Some way behind it is a keyboard. The musician of the group (Dylan Townley) sits there, idly picking out notes to accompany the orchestral music as he watches his co-performers dutifully meet and greet.

Aaaand Now For Something Completely Improvised is a performance brought together by the UK-based improvised comedy quintet Racing Minds. The piece is based around the premise of a story being told by a grandfather to his grandchildren. However, the grandfather – bespectacled and pipe in hand – has forgotten some significant details.

Not to worry though – this is where the audience can help (and those that do are rewarded with a Werther’s Original).

Daniel Roberts is possibly the most proper of all the British gentlemen on stage. He attempts to help the grandfather (Tom Skelton) recall the time-forgotten features of the story, while Dougie Walker and Chris Turner – the grandchildren of the scene – listen attentively.  After a brief string of helpful ideas, the cast give up and Roberts approaches a member of the audience, inquiring “Who is this person in this book – what’s his name?”

That’s not the only detail that’s missing. We also need to establish where the story is set, what the main character’s dark secret is – not to mention the title.

On Thursday night’s show, the story became ‘Boris and The Mashed Banana’. The group wove in and out of the unknown story with remarkable ingenuity. They incorporated callbacks, challenged each other amiably on lapses of thought and speech, and shared scenes with the smooth delivery you might expect belongs only in the realm of an established and thoroughly rehearsed production.

It would be reasonable to think an improvised show would include some fragmented narrative; but such was not the case with this group. Instead, we have seamlessly interlaced scenes and riveting dialogue. As the story surprises and enthralls, it is clear that even the performers are unsure what might happen next. This element of uncertainty only makes more impressive their cohesive performance.

Aaaand now you should probably go see the show.

Aaaand Now For Something Completely Improvised runs until February 9 at the Circus Theatre in the Perth Cultural Centre, Northbridge. Tickets available via www.fringeworld.com.au

Presented by Nicole Henriksen

Pho Barn at Noodle Palace

Review by Jasmine Seabrook-Benson

Nicole Henriksen has formed a connection with everyone before the show’s even started. She is friendly, welcoming, exceptionally lively and clearly very pleased to again be performing at Fringe World 2016.

Dressed in a vibrant blue Poncho, Nicole reminds us to suspend our disbelief. She crouches down at the corner of the stage as the lights dim, microphone in hand, and introduces herself with the smooth aplomb of an accomplished MC.

Techno Glitter Penguins is Henriksen’s hot mess variety show. Incorporating political comedy, ludicrous bits of humour and an eye-catching physical performance, she succeeds in bringing the house down with laughter.

Nicole’s ability to take a serious topic and address it through comedy is exemplified early on. She delivers a thrilling monologue on gender as she formally welcomes everyone to the show. Yes, that’s right: she can weave political comedy into a welcome.

Henriksen impresses the audience with her acting as she embodies the characters of two utterly peculiar guest performers. On each occasion, she provides us with an entertaining video before disappearing behind the privacy screen at the side of stage. Keeping the show going as she makes the necessary alterations to her appearance, it’s only moments before we’re all giggling; almost believing that the woman in front of us is an entirely different person.

We’re kept on the edge of our seats with an array of skilful parody, rewritten jokes — Nicole can take ‘why did the chicken cross the road’ and turn it on its head with a quip about capitalism — ridiculous and touching impressions, and a high proportion of improvised content. However, despite the madcap range of this high-energy performance, the show is never in danger of falling apart.

As Nicole invites us to sing along to her exit song (which she’s singing unaccompanied) no one moves. We’re all thoroughly entertained, and it takes her to interrupt the song with a kind nudge to ‘please leave’ before we finally accept that the show is over.

Nicole Henriksen – Techno Glitter Penguins runs until February 6 at Pho Barn at Noodle Palace, Perth. Tickets available here.

Puddles Pity Party is a cabaret performance with a twist. Renowned worldwide and best known for his YouTube pop covers, Puddles’ show sold out at the recent Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The sad clown with a gift for singing appears in classic, lily-white pierrot makeup with a slightly dishevelled crown tilted ‘just so’.

While people get seated, Puddles pops gum into his mouth. By the time the show starts, he has accumulated so much that he can barely chew. Perhaps you’re wondering how he will sing? Don’t worry, he has a solution: his suitcase is an ideal place for his gum to rest while he performs. As words on screen tell us, this is a party that has to turn out right.

Puddles’ esteemed baritone rings out as he sings modern classics like ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘Royals’, ‘Chandelier’, ‘Hallelujah’, and ‘Happy Birthday’. During the latter he ‘forgets’ the name of each audience member that he has sought out. Instead of singing their names, he sings ‘Kevin’. By the end of the show, we’ve learnt why — Puddles is rather fond of Kevin Costner.

Not only is he gigantic in stature (at just over two metres in height), and in the possession of a magnificent voice, but Puddles also has a tendency to maraud around the periphery seeking out audience interaction. He has a surprisingly approachable and likeable nature, the result of which is a willing cast of participants that befriend the clown, acting as props, backup singers, and assistants on stage.

Almost everything Puddles does is tinged with a sombre tone. However, while he sings sad songs, sways despondently, plays frustrated gags and pleads wordlessly with his chosen audience members, everyone around him has an irrepressible smile on their face.

Puddles Pity Party has the audience singing along, laughing, and in some cases dancing, as Puddles creates a delightfully touching and riotously funny party that does turn out right.

Puddles Pity Party runs from January 29 to February 4 at the Circus Theatre in Perth Cultural Centre, Northbridge. Tickets available here.

Punching Down, Sami’s energetic tirade of inter-connected stories performed in the style of observational comedy, impresses and stuns. With the mood oscillating from flippant to sombre, Shah takes us on a unique journey in a way that only he could.

Standing onstage in a shirt that blends with the white curtains in the wings, he reflects on his disarmingly prompt acclimatisation to Melbourne weather.

Shah speaks on a number of provocative topics, shifting the setting from Perth to Melbourne to Pakistan, London and Northam. He effortlessly weaves his observations together with elegant callbacks and an expert use of metaphor.

Aside from his lively social commentary, Shah’s apt demonstration of exactly how to achieve a chiselled physique also has the audience chuckling. He scuttles back and forth, exclaiming and frantic, before turning his point around completely. Next, he’s telling us how to tackle Australia’s “apex predator” of racism.

There are, of course, awkward stories, but they’re not what you might expect. Sami reflects on the topic of bigotry in Australia and overseas with the sophistication we have come to know and love, but in Punching Down he proves that his comedic scope goes well beyond this topic. The selection of personal tales is vast and balanced, complete with sage reflections on life and its strange twists and turns.

The highlight of opening night was Sami’s ad-libbed response to the booming sounds of a gym upstairs. He moved away from his story, had the audience in raptures of laughter at his impromptu assertions, and then smoothly picked up right where he had left off.

Some of Shah’s content was surprisingly dark, and perhaps a little bitter, but his high-energy stream of stories was at no stage dull or unfortunate. He’s a consummate entertainer, and his last segment, an ode to the importance of laughter, was stunning proof of this fact.

Sami Shah: Punching Down runs from January 27-31 at the Comedy Shack in Northbridge, and on February 7 at The Balmoral Backyard on Albany Highway, East Victoria Park. Tickets available here.

Presented by Nicole Henriksen

Pho Barn at Noodle Palace 

Interview by Jasmine Seabrook-Benson

Nicole Henriksen has performed her alternative comedy shows around the world since debuting as a live performer in 2011. This year, she brings an entirely new show to Fringe World Perth with debut theatre production Nicole Henriksen is Makin it Rain.

In her solo show, Henriksen offers a unique and candid performance that delves into her experiences as a stripper. It explores strip club culture as well as our society, grappling with themes of sex, sexuality, and body image.

Distinctive and complex, Makin it Rain deals with much more than just full-frontal nudity. It allows the audience a peek behind the curtain – as it were – of not only the striptease industry but Nicole herself.

“Doing that job and having everyone else kind of recommend that I do a show started the ball rolling,” Henriksen says. “And then once it did start rolling, I realised what I was sitting on and what I could potentially achieve, which was really important to me.”

On the genre of the show, Henriksen reflects, “I could have had a stand-up comedy show about it, I could have had a cabaret or a burlesque show about it. But I realised I didn’t want to have a distance between myself and the audience anymore. I actually wanted to challenge myself to break that down even further”.

It was for Nicole validating to be able to share “a space where I can talk about so many things that matter to me.” On how it feels to perform this show, she says “allowing myself to embrace the idea of being so candid, being so open, being so honest and just being in a lot of ways, being there in the moment, in the space … it’s terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure.”

One of the main strengths of Makin it Rain is its ability to open up conversations on a topic typically considered ‘taboo’. The audience reaction on opening night is always surprising. “I felt people actually… gasp, I felt people inhale,” Nicole says. Such responses have made her realise that she “shouldn’t shy away from being this real and honest.”

“If people are willing to be open and they’re willing to take something away, then that’s already enough for me.”

Nicole Henriksen is Makin it Rain runs from 29-30 January at the Pho Barn at Noodle Palace on Francis Street, Perth*. Tickets available via www.fringeworld.com.au

*Note: extra show dates may be added

Vladimir the Crow appears. At first you see only his contorted hand emerging from the wings. The music continues and the mood is set. As he shuffles slowly onto the stage, creeping voicelessly, the audience is already chuckling.

Paul Bourke’s new solo show Whispering Ghoul makes its premiere for this season of Fringe World Perth. Although Bourke’s character and the topic of the show are on the darker side, the piece is performed with a light, almost ludicrous sense of fun. Bourke hails from a range of renowned theatre schools including The Ecole Philippe Gaulier in Paris, the results of which are clear in his spirited performance.

As Vladimir, Bourke is amusing from the outset; miming almost incomprehensibly before emitting ghostly ‘Oooo’ sounds until the audience joins him. Sure, he looks a little spooky with his black eyeliner and pale complexion, and the vast array of terrifying noises he makes is impressive; but he is also humble, and rather sweet. You get the sense that Vladimir likes the human audience, and really does want to please them. He also wants to celebrate his realm of ghosts and monsters, reflect on human fragility and share his observations on both the light and darkness to be found in the world.

A crash course in gothic horror, Bourke finds a deft balance between comedic and terrifying.  However, the story itself comes across as disjointed, and was – on the night I saw it – occasionally let down by lighting issues.

A testament to his acting skills, Bourke’s masterful embodiment of his character makes up for these shortcomings. The show’s highlight is when he assumes the identity of other resident spirits as a medium, supported by some starkly terrifying audio engineering.

While there is a high level of interaction with the audience, Vladimir the Crow is surprisingly approachable for such a dark character. As he lurches, mimes and unnerves, the audience is alive with laughter. He doesn’t steal your soul; he steals your heart.

Vladimir the Crow – Whispering Ghoul runs from January 27-30 in the Laksa Lounge at Noodle Palace on Francis Street, Perth. Tickets available via www.fringeworld.com.au

By The Blue Room Theatre Summer Nights & Jeffcattprodco.

The Blue Room Theatre Studio

23rd January 2016

Review by Jasmine Seabrook-Benson

As the audience enters a darkened theatre through a narrow hall, they pass by a man. He appears somewhat worn — tired and a touch dishevelled — standing with a hunch by the wall. He is not there to greet or chat. He’s just there. He’s Fred.

Soothing acoustic guitar wafts out of the open theatre as people find their seats. It’s there that you meet the second man. Tank sits peacefully with his radio by his foot and a bottle in his hand. There is a third man, and his name is Terry, but you meet him later.

The show truly begins when the music stops.

Hobo, writer-director James Taylor’s high energy debut, is a thoroughly compelling and occasionally very amusing piece of theatre. Chris Bell, James Hagen, and Maitland Schnaars may be the actors, but they’re so convincing that you’ll only ever see Fred, Tank, and Terry.

The core of the show depicts people struggling to be heard, whether that’s due to their own poor choices, or because of their race or sexuality. Each has their own tormentor, and they all connect as their stories weave together.

The story, as well as the character’s places within it, appears to be unclear at first. It’s tempting to consider it a flaw in either writing or delivery, however, following the performance, I was struck by the realisation that this was Taylor’s full intention.

In those early moments, when I questioned the sudden and slightly disjointed elements, I was already enthralled, and it seemed that the entire audience on this particular night was also entranced. Every person fascinated, observing every movement, every mumbled word, every booming declaration, and every thought.

The depiction of poverty, desperation, psychological struggles, and connection within this piece is powerful. The voices of those not often heard ring out, they reverberate, they sing, they question. The voices of those not often heard can be the voice of one.

Hobo runs from January 23-25 at The Blue Room Theatre Studio on James Street, Northbridge. Tickets available here.