Reviews: MICF 09 – 5th April

Penultimate night (for Viv) in Melbourne!
Sunday shows: Mother of the Year, Comedy Zone: Bottle Rockets, Anarchists Guild Social Committee: A Fine Selection, Festival Club: Haus Party

Mother of the Year knows its target audience well and hits the bullseye square on: three veteran ratbags parade their parenting foibles with unapologetic verve (Nelly Thomas, Catherine Deveny, Christine Basil). There’s perhaps not much that’s all that unexpected in this show, just three strong raconteurs doing what they do best, and a crowd that laps it up (I took a friend along after a lunch date because her husband had been so excited to see the Devenator at a Roller Derby the night before). A full house on a Sunday indicates that this is one you need to book for.
Comedy Zone: Bottle Rockets – a festival sponsored showcase for 4 hand-picked rising comedy acts from around the country. (Julia Clark (NSW), Laura Davis (WA), Neil Sinclair (VIC) and musical duo Smart Casual (NSW)) There’s an ensemble feel to this year’s show that by repute has not always been the Comedy Zone experience, and this cohesion makes the hour zoom by. Two of the actswere already known to me from Sydney , but less than a week into the festival and they’ve already sharpened their acts considerably. All four acts are looking very comfortable on the stage and are having a ball – you wont’ regret joining their party.
Anarchist Guild Social Committee Meetings are a Melbourne underground comedy fave (this is another gig I took a Melbourne friend along to because he’s a fan), putting on monthly sketch shows at Trades Hall with a roster of rising local comedians (all with other festivals shows this year as well – Celia Pacquola, Andrew McClelland, Tegan Higginbotham, Richard McKenzie, Courteney Hocking, Dave Bushell, Ben McKenzie and Nick Caddaye). In A Fine Selection they’re putting on three Sunday shows only of favourite material from the past year’s shows, and on the first night they played to a crowd full of local fans and visiting comedians wanting to test the hype. Like most sketch comedy shows, there was some filler, but most of this show was icing and sprinkles. Another one you’ll need to book for, probably.

Then I went along to the Festival Club at Hi-Fi courtesy of UK master-of-the-one-liner John Moloney (but did you know he also can play the accordion?), where I caught Die Roten Punkte having a raucous time Eurotrashing the joint for their Sunday night Haus Party with DJ Andy McClelland. Some of the guests were Axis of Awesome, the Pajama Men, the irreverent Geraldine Quinn, Sammy J and some startling audience participation. The Hi-Fi late night show is rather industry-incestuous, which might not be everyone’s preference, but if you want a taste of this year’s festival performers combined with moments of spot-that-face-from-the-telly then it’s a fun way to finish the night.