Around the Fringe (part three)

Disclaimer: the opinions expressed in the following reviews are made in a private capacity, and do not represent the opinions of the Melbourne Fringe Board, of which I am Chair.

THE POST APOCALYPTIC USERS' GUIDE

Xavier Michelides first presented this highly enjoyable evening of stand up at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival earlier this year. I liked it then, and I like it now, even though it is exactly the same show as far as I can tell.

Linked together by a struggling comedian MCing a comedy club in a world where aliens have just invaded, Michelides deftly switches through a range of characters, including the 'End of the World is Nigh' man who has a direct line to God, a half-man half cockroach, and an Evil Mastermind of the sort James Bond and Superman regularly come up against.

While not constantly, side-splittingly funny, The Post Apocalyptic Users' Guide is a consistently entertaining show, exceptionally well structured and strongly delivered. Definitely the sort of show you’ll constantly chuckle through, with the occasional hearty guffaw at key moments of the show, such as in my favourite routine, about a man in love with a zombie - which is performed entirely in mime!

Rating: Three and a half stars

ALL THE SINGLE LADIES

Oh dear. There’s the germ of a good comedy show here, but this fitfully funny production about two socially retarded computer nerds with unrealised crushes on one another isn’t it.

The two main characters, played by writers/performers Tommy Dassalo and Bart Freebairn, were underdeveloped and overacted, and the style of humour – which was meant to highlight the characters’ misogyny – occasionally slipped over the line to become itself misogynistic. The inclusion of video interludes was clunky, though some of the videos were themselves quite funny; and the show's ending was particularly weak.

Dave Callan gets bonus points for appearing in an Elvis jumpsuit (and for what the jumpsuit reveals, which makes me sound slightly pervy, but is actually a reference to a joke in the show) but otherwise there's not a lot in this show to recommend I'm afraid.

Rating: Two stars

For more Fringe reviews, check out the new blog by 'John Bailey', Capital Idea, Express Media's Buzzcuts program, and the excellent Spark Online; while The Groggy Squirrel is running reviews from the comedy stream of the Fringe program.