last weekend's comedy marathon
I went to ARG on Sat and Sun and then to the Alternative Comedy Memorial Society on Monday night. About 17 hours of comedy over three days, mostly a bit weird. Very much my kind of weekend.
Philosophers quoted: Wittgenstein, Derrida, Zizek (twice).
ARG day 1, fragmentary notes of some good bits:
ARG day 1:
Rachel Parris;- set in a minor Vegas hotel, Parris plays all the acts in the floor show; songs as a liberal country singer from small-town Alabama, a posh indie boy, and a horrible torch singer. Likeable, good songs, fun.
Joe Morpurgo's Odessa. Morpurgo also plays a lot of characters, but his show is much stranger and more intense, and very multimedia-heavy. Based on a couple of minutes of news footage and ads from 1983; Morpurgo plays all the characters seen on screen (policeman, fire chief, woman in an ad for a christmas shop, diamond salesman)- and a lot that he's extrapolated (like two separate reindeer), to form a strange narrative of fire and murder. Features threats to wrap bolshy spectators up like a present, simultaneous proposals to see if there's a mysterious aura around a real diamond, a guy so manly he cultivates mould, a touching birthing ceremony, rather tight boxer shorts, and a shiny static beast. Highly recommended (even if his slide clicker breaks again.)
Cariad and Paul, long-form improv, one word prompting a whole set of scenes. This set had a throughline about researchers testing which part of a pig to eat (the meat, it turns out. The year spent trying teeth was wasted), and then splitting up, with a detour about poisoners creating a new potion from horrible bits of anatomy (in between cups of mint and pig-tooth tea). A nice call-back to the compere's gag about how people can't hang up the phone quickly any more, and on to some travelling pig meat salesmen in Middle America, with the researcher from the beginning trying to find his lost assistant- it turns out she told him where she was going by training the pigs to spell out the address. It turns into a duel of eating horrible bits of pig (Cariad turns away as Paul mimes eating an anus, and he reminds her to yes-and)- cleverly won by tricking the baddie into eating brains full of instant-acting CJD.
Liam Williams, from Sheeps; the show's called Capitalism, and mentioned it for about the first five minutes before rambling away to cover Williams' irritation at his own pretentiousness (this is one of the mentions of Zizek) and lack of commitment to anything. Grumpy and depressive. Liked it.
Thom Tuck's conceit is asking the audience to tell him things that they are (which would work better with a smaller audience!), and melding that in with bits about identity, the stories we tell ourselves, maths, ("*Now* you're allowed to extrapolate!") and philosophy (Zizek *and* Derrida quotes, here). Partly about meeting his biological father. Reification- "Alcoholism isn't a thing." Ideology- a bit about companies efficiently killing kittens…
John-Luke Roberts: I saw him previewing Stnad-Up at Mach, too, and this was very similar but with less undressing and more flour on the face. Just as fun though.
Casual Violence- not a preview of their new sketch show, but the greatest-hits one they're dong on the free fringe. I'd seen a few of them in House of Nostril last year- retired boy chimney sweep being asked back for one last job, new poison testers, and a man asking not to be taxidermic when he died; also liked a two-man alien-spotting society (with very vigourous stamping on tinfoil hat when one of them resigned), a man graphically confessing misdeeds with a pillow, a Cbeeebies show teaching the alphabet with lots of guns, the Romantic poets school ("and that's how Keats got TB"). Smallish audience, but the group members offstage fell about with laughter enough to make up for it!
Robin Ince and Michael Legge, Pointless Anger, Righteous Ire; They insult each other, shout about things that make them angry, make each other giggle, and invite the audience to speak up about their own peeves to see if they're voted to be pointless or righteous. This time Robin had recently accidentally done an advert voiceover out of politeness, whereas Michael has done a bunch (the voice of Mercedes is a grumpy Northern Irish vegan!) so they talked about that a bit, and had a go at observational comedy, stadium comedy, and pretty much all comedy from after 1990. Avocados that are supposedly ripe but have actually gone off was he winning audience gripe. Very happy, good-natured, shouty.
Beta Males: Seemingly unconnected sketches, then a storyline emerges about a baker selling magic cakes and a police superintendent about to retire, tortured by the fact that he's had a completely untroubled career and personal life. ("Dammit, I haven't been passed over for promotion, time and time again!") Very bad clones; a father turned into a pony; an industrial spy with much sarcastic clapping when he's discovered; Windy Miller.
Tl;dr: I had a lovely time, and you should go and see Joseph Morpurgo's show. This entry was originally posted at http://shark-hat.dreamwidth.org/193392.html. Comment here or there.
Philosophers quoted: Wittgenstein, Derrida, Zizek (twice).
ARG day 1, fragmentary notes of some good bits:
ARG day 1:
Rachel Parris;- set in a minor Vegas hotel, Parris plays all the acts in the floor show; songs as a liberal country singer from small-town Alabama, a posh indie boy, and a horrible torch singer. Likeable, good songs, fun.
Joe Morpurgo's Odessa. Morpurgo also plays a lot of characters, but his show is much stranger and more intense, and very multimedia-heavy. Based on a couple of minutes of news footage and ads from 1983; Morpurgo plays all the characters seen on screen (policeman, fire chief, woman in an ad for a christmas shop, diamond salesman)- and a lot that he's extrapolated (like two separate reindeer), to form a strange narrative of fire and murder. Features threats to wrap bolshy spectators up like a present, simultaneous proposals to see if there's a mysterious aura around a real diamond, a guy so manly he cultivates mould, a touching birthing ceremony, rather tight boxer shorts, and a shiny static beast. Highly recommended (even if his slide clicker breaks again.)
Cariad and Paul, long-form improv, one word prompting a whole set of scenes. This set had a throughline about researchers testing which part of a pig to eat (the meat, it turns out. The year spent trying teeth was wasted), and then splitting up, with a detour about poisoners creating a new potion from horrible bits of anatomy (in between cups of mint and pig-tooth tea). A nice call-back to the compere's gag about how people can't hang up the phone quickly any more, and on to some travelling pig meat salesmen in Middle America, with the researcher from the beginning trying to find his lost assistant- it turns out she told him where she was going by training the pigs to spell out the address. It turns into a duel of eating horrible bits of pig (Cariad turns away as Paul mimes eating an anus, and he reminds her to yes-and)- cleverly won by tricking the baddie into eating brains full of instant-acting CJD.
Liam Williams, from Sheeps; the show's called Capitalism, and mentioned it for about the first five minutes before rambling away to cover Williams' irritation at his own pretentiousness (this is one of the mentions of Zizek) and lack of commitment to anything. Grumpy and depressive. Liked it.
Thom Tuck's conceit is asking the audience to tell him things that they are (which would work better with a smaller audience!), and melding that in with bits about identity, the stories we tell ourselves, maths, ("*Now* you're allowed to extrapolate!") and philosophy (Zizek *and* Derrida quotes, here). Partly about meeting his biological father. Reification- "Alcoholism isn't a thing." Ideology- a bit about companies efficiently killing kittens…
John-Luke Roberts: I saw him previewing Stnad-Up at Mach, too, and this was very similar but with less undressing and more flour on the face. Just as fun though.
Casual Violence- not a preview of their new sketch show, but the greatest-hits one they're dong on the free fringe. I'd seen a few of them in House of Nostril last year- retired boy chimney sweep being asked back for one last job, new poison testers, and a man asking not to be taxidermic when he died; also liked a two-man alien-spotting society (with very vigourous stamping on tinfoil hat when one of them resigned), a man graphically confessing misdeeds with a pillow, a Cbeeebies show teaching the alphabet with lots of guns, the Romantic poets school ("and that's how Keats got TB"). Smallish audience, but the group members offstage fell about with laughter enough to make up for it!
Robin Ince and Michael Legge, Pointless Anger, Righteous Ire; They insult each other, shout about things that make them angry, make each other giggle, and invite the audience to speak up about their own peeves to see if they're voted to be pointless or righteous. This time Robin had recently accidentally done an advert voiceover out of politeness, whereas Michael has done a bunch (the voice of Mercedes is a grumpy Northern Irish vegan!) so they talked about that a bit, and had a go at observational comedy, stadium comedy, and pretty much all comedy from after 1990. Avocados that are supposedly ripe but have actually gone off was he winning audience gripe. Very happy, good-natured, shouty.
Beta Males: Seemingly unconnected sketches, then a storyline emerges about a baker selling magic cakes and a police superintendent about to retire, tortured by the fact that he's had a completely untroubled career and personal life. ("Dammit, I haven't been passed over for promotion, time and time again!") Very bad clones; a father turned into a pony; an industrial spy with much sarcastic clapping when he's discovered; Windy Miller.
Tl;dr: I had a lovely time, and you should go and see Joseph Morpurgo's show. This entry was originally posted at http://shark-hat.dreamwidth.org/193392.html. Comment here or there.