[24daysofgiggles-blog]

Monkey Business

This was certainly one of the most memorable shows of the festival, because I never knew what was coming next. This show was an hour-long that let you know that when "you unleash the monkey within...anything is possible". This show performed by two independently brilliant comedians bought me close to some of the biggest laughs of the festival. Quite a feat considering I'd just walked out of Steve Wrigley and Ben Hurley's show as this one began. 

This show began with a presentation, a day in the life of a gorillaman, as you can see by the photo at the bottom, with which comes a little eyes warning, because it was taken at showgirls - I don't think I need say more. However this show then developed into the kind of seminar session that I'm quite used to after 7 years in the corporate environment. 

This became quite the corporate event - to the point I was wondering if I was going to get invoiced for - however it became quickly clear that though this was the format, it was intended to be funny, so you wouldn't get the weird looks from those around you that you get at a "Building Personal and Professional Growth" workshop.

This show is one, that with general tidying, I think would go down well as a surprise twist to a Corporate Christmas Lunch. A great amount of crowd involvement, some basic explanation of psychology, and our relationship to the true tree-huggers. 

This show gets a fantastic Three and a Half bunches of bananas, for being a brilliantly creative, and enjoyable endeavor. This is a show that could easily be recreated next year, I think it would draw bigger and better crowds, and could probably be recommended to be considered for the Comedy Trust Grant. 

[24daysofgiggles-blog]

Tom Furniss' Free Ice Cream Show (@TomFurnissNZ)

So, Tom Furniss is another of this year's Billy T Nomninees. This deceptively charismatic young man manages to express his talents for making people laugh, generally with a blindsiding punchline. 

Going into this show I had two things on my mind:

Is he going to be funny

Will there be free ice cream, as the title suggests.

OK, so maybe not in that order. But that's the order in which the questions were answered. 

This hour of comedy involved the kind of Audience Interaction that left one poor, slightly racist, lactose intolerant Australian girl quivering in front of a room of comedy fans. We all laughed. She got given a joke book to help her out. 

In this hour we heard about all sorts of facets of the life of well traveled (he'd just gotten back from Melbourne) Tom Furniss. We got to hear about the literary endeavors of his British Namesake, and how he chooses to get back at people for writing books in his name. We learned how important it is for the performer to remember to put his phone on silent before taking to the stage, and the kind of expectations he has for a green room. 

We even got to hear about his delightfully surprising visit from one Sarah-Jessica Parker, the story of which evidently ended up on the back of some lunchbox literature (yes, I'm getting a bit cryptic, maybe you should go see his show if he re-runs it).

An excellent hour of unexpected punchlines that kept the audience on the edge of their seats. Loved it!

And he wasn't a liar. There was free Ice Cream. And it was nomsy. 

This show gets Four and a half scoops. 

[24daysofgiggles-blog]

[24daysofgiggles-blog]

Final Show Count

For those who asked, the final show count was 56. Don't forget to check out the Poster For Charity.

25 April: 

Big Wednesday at The Classic 

26 April: 

5 Star Comedy Preview

27 April:

The Gala

28 April: 

Steve Wrigley and Cyan Corwine – Kevin the Musical  

Terry Frisby – The Great Frisby Experiment

29 April: 

RAW SemiFinal 1

30 April:

Dead Cat Bounce

1 May

Stephen K Amos

Jeremy Elwood’s Time Bomb

2 May (Wellington)

TJ McDonald – My life has been a series of poorly made decisions

Jan Maree – Hairy Today, Gone Tomorrow

3 May

Cut to the Chase – The Director’s Cut – Reverend Jellie

Urzila Carlson - I’m going to need a second opinion

Ben Hurley and Guests

4 May

Jamie Bowen – Munfred Bernstein’s Cabinet Of Wonder

Covert Improv

5 May

Mr Boon's Fairy Tales

Dead Cat Bounce

Jesse Griffin

Late Laughs with Urzila Carlson

6 May

RAW SemiFinal 2

David O’Doherty – Is looking up

7 May

Terry Alderton

8 May

Cal Wilson - Is All Ears

Justine Smith and Irene Pink - The Pitch

9 May

Desperate and Dateless - Class Comedian Graduates 2011

Brendon Green

Rhys Mathewson vs The World

Jamie Adam, Tim Batt, Steven Boyce - Jokers, Smokers, and Midnight Tokers

10 May 

Rhys Darby - This way to Spaceship

11 May 

Des Bishop – Likes To Bang 

Gordon Southern - The history of history

12 May

Class Comedians 2012 - Final

Cal Wilson

Brendhan Lovegrove - Bury Me Happy

Late Laughs with Justine Smith

13 May

Raw Comedy Final

14 May 

Tevita Manukia – Knock Knock

Guy Williams – On the verge of nothing

15 May

Rose Matafeo – Scout’s Honour

Andrew Clay - Dumped

16 May

Private Dick

Greg Ellis - Vance Fontaine in Command Performance

Clayton Carrick-Leslie - Write About What You Know

17 May

Tom Furniss - The Free Ice Cream Show

Ben Hurley and Steve Wrigley

James Elliott and John Glass - Monkey Business

18 May

Tarun Mohanbhai - Joke In the Box

Janey Godley

The Nowhere Show

19 May

The Boy With Tape On His Face

Bombs Away! A Musical

Reuben Lee Soul Doubt?

Gish – Takes

Late Laughs with Steve Wrigley

20 May

Last Laughs

[24daysofgiggles-blog]

A Small Summary of My Festival

So it's over. What does this mean? Where do we go from here?

Well, for punters like me, we start getting back to normal with our lives, and wait for the next big thing. 

For the awesome Festival Team, including, but far from limited to the wonderful Kylie Aitchison, Lauren Whitney, Spencer Dowson, Debs McKeen, and Kate McGee. These were the five main people I talked to, negotiated with, harassed in the lead up to the festival. I'd like to thank you all for all the great work you've put in to the festival, and for all the time you set aside to deal with my petty requests. 

Kylie Aitchison: Thank you for letting me do this. With me as a punter, if you'd said "I don't feel comfortable with what you're doing" I'd have stopped straight away, I'd have shut the blog down immediately, and just gone to my shows. You didn't. I'm grateful for that. You gave me permission to try for the Poster For Charity. Thank you for that, both from me, and from the Child Cancer Foundation.

Lauren and Spencer: I've harassed you both pretty fiercely over the last year, but to be honest, this whole project sparked out of a suggestion from Lauren last year. I owe you a lot. Spencer, for starters you've taken the heat off of Lauren from me most recently. You've done a great job for the festival, and promoting me where you can through your wonderful means of communication, even getting a blog of mine up on the website (and hopefully this one too). Thank you.

Debs McKeen, you've done an awesome job producing all the big events throughout this festival, whether or not people know the extent of the impact you make on the festival, you should unquestionably be recognised for it. You rock!

And Kate. You've been awesome, for hooking me up with the media pass, for coordinating a lot of my tickets, dealing with last minute changes, among many other things. You've been awesome to deal with, and I have no idea how you've managed to stay so happy and chirpy all the time. 

To my beautiful half. Thank you for your love, support, and tolerance during this project. It's been a long three and a half weeks. A longer four months. Thank you for supporting me through this project which became an obsession, and is now a great set of memories, or will be, as soon as the #PosterForCharity has been sold. 

To all the acts who've supported me, either with comp tickets, or stuff to give away, or even a tiny bit of promotion, thank you all. 

To all the acts I've seen, thank you for making me laugh. 

It is safe to say that you might not see me at the classic for a couple of weeks, while I comedy-detox, but I look forward to jumping back on this bandwagon next year. Whether or not it's to the same extent, I don't know. I have a feeling I'm going to need some help next year. So if you're interested in comedy blogging, let me know. 

To all the readers and subscribers, thanks for your support. I hope you liked what you got. If you didn't, let me know what I can improve on. 

Now I suppose all that's left to say is that it's time to start bidding on the #PosterForCharity - You know you want to! http://drake.net.nz/LrNzbP

[24daysofgiggles-blog]

(@NZComedyFest) A Pre-Culmination Note of Love

All, 

First of all, thank you to everyone who has supported my goal of the last 23 days. It's been an awesome ride, and I plan to do a lot of shoutouts in my wrap up blog. Which I do hope will be syndicated on the Comedy Festival website. 

Tonight was awesome. I had a blast. Tears pouring down my face, my sides hurt, it was an awesome late show. 

I know I'm about 6 blogs behind in reviews. In all honesty, I've hit the wall. They will come, in a few days, once I'm winding down. 

I'm fifty three shows in. Fifty four is tomorrow night. It's the big one: The night we find out who's won the Billy T Award, the night we find out who's won the Fred Award, and many other rightful acknowledgements will happen. 

I've met and chatted with all of the nominees for the Billy this year, some formally, some informally. You're all awesome in your own rights. And only two people know who I'm hedging my bets on, but it's very tight. 

The Fred Nominees are all wonderful people. Two of whom I've interviewed, one of whom it's very difficult to interview because HE HAS TAPE ON HIS FACE!

Good luck to everyone up for an award tomorrow. 

Tonight I hang up my festival shirts I've been rocking on high-rotation for the last three and a half weeks. (Don't worry, they've been washed every night, and I've had two on rotation). Tomorrow I crack out the business shirt I should have worn to the Gala, if for nothing more than to show respect to the people who have worked so damn hard to get where they are on the night. 

I'm going to go have a shower, and try and catch up on some sleep. 

May you all laugh until your sides hurt, and your eyes are red from tears. 

Yvan

[24daysofgiggles-blog]

Clayton Carrick-Leslie's Written about what he knows...

Clayton Carrick-Leslie has long since been one of my favourite kiwi comedians. In a court of law one might call that Bias, but I call it "Recognising great talent". This is the third festival show I've seen of Clayton's and once again I was not disappointed. 

Clayton's sense of humour takes the audience on a long satirical ride of impressions, observations, detective work, and the search for love. His one liners draw great laughs from the crowd, and if one fails, he always has a quick call-back to bring the audience back on-side. 

Reusing only the tiniest piece of material from last year's show, this show of mostly-new material had me in laughter from situations that are all too real - so real it hurt. His observations of the general psyche of both the male, and female mindsets can be quite thought provoking about the motives behind the actions of those who you love most, and it was brilliant. 

Clayton Carrick Leslie's show is running until Saturday at the loft at Q, and is a highly recommended see.

[24daysofgiggles-blog]

I want an Encore to Vance Fontaine's career!

I went into this show, honestly not knowing what to expect. I was greeted by a Four Piece band and one of the most impressive beards I've ever seen on a drummer (how he didn't get his brushes caught, I'm not sure). 

This show shows the completely improvised career of Vance Fontaine. A kiwi legend who's done all sorts of interesting things in my life. Some of the things that appeared in the show I saw were:

Songs about love lost with Hungarian Dancers

Improvised trip-hop songs

Singing about working as the sixth spice-girl

Working in a sex hotel, as a cleaner from a reputable Auckland Carpet Cleaning Company

Being Responsible for NZ Band Tadpole

and a gigantic medley.

It's clear that Greg Ellis is not someone who shies away from a good challenge. And I like that. It's well worth taking the time to see this show, even if it's with the intention of trying to trip up a band who could quite easily become NZ's Next top Party Band.

I'm going to give them a respectable rating of four well-impressive sets of sideburns.

[24daysofgiggles-blog]

Private Dick - An Improvised Film Noir Mystery

It's really hard to review and rate an improvised show, I've come to realise during this festival. But what I have realised is I very much like improv, and virtually anything put on by the Covert Improv group and produced by the delightful Wade Jackson is generally brilliant, because the Covert Improv group are well conditioned to go for anything put in front of them. 

The premise of this show folllows around a Private Detective (Dick) while he goes looking for something determined by the audience. It's clear to see the cast are having fun, especially when they try to throw each other off with some of the most obscure references, or lines with some of the seediest double-entendres known to man. 

It was a fantastic show, and a great laugh, as every production I've seen by this troupe has been. The only tip I will give potential audience members, is to avoid sitting by the right hand side of the seating, too near the live music. Sure, it's a nice touch, but I found it was a little towards the "excessively loud" range, and meant I only caught about half of the dialogue. 

[24daysofgiggles-blog]

Dumped - A Five Star Performance

Of a Tuesday Night, I wouldn't normally be found in a theatre waiting to see a play. This kind of stage amusement is something new to  me, outside of the requisite school productions (I was only ever in one, and I proudly played a tomato - where's my role on Go Girls?), and the couple of Ballets I saw performed because my cousin was it it.

I honestly didn't know what to expect, maybe a couple of comedians on stage throwing some punchlines around, and everyone claps and laughs. But I was genuinely surprised with the level of performance I saw. 

This was a script that had evidently been worked on for quite a while. It was well honed, and was no two-bit throw together for a TV Soap. A low budget show that quite obviously did not need big, expensive sets to distract the audience from a poor performance from an unmotivated cast, because the performance was far from poor, and the cast looked like they had more than all of the motivation they need. 

Dumped told the tale of far too many people these days. Showed the trials and tribulations of making a romance work in this day and age, with technology, and completely different standards from those of a few decades ago.

Without wanting to ruin any surprises, it's safe to say that many of Jackie Clark's talents are utilised in this show, and not to it's detriment, this show takes the audience on a journey almost everyone can relate to, either from first-hand experience, or from having seen it happen. It also means that some of the punchlines cause you to laugh so hard it hurts - or maybe a wee bit of that hurt isn't just from the laughter. 

I would easily give this show a Five Star rating, and sincerely hope it will return for another season.

[24daysofgiggles-blog]

Rose Matafeo - Scout's Honour (@Rose_Matafeo)

Rose Matafeo's show started off with a twist I've not seen before. I've never seen a performer of a comedy show on stage as the audience comes in (unless the audience is late, of course). I even got a cute badge with an adorable kitty! 

In theme with the name of the show I was quite impressed with the "Bling" us brave ones in the front row got to take home, as well as the bling the other audience members who participated in the show earned.

It was a multi-media extravaganza (I think I have used that phrase in another review, but this one had a video as well), that led to the hour long unveiling of who the real Rose Matafeo is. 

At times Matafeo's awkwardness, or self-reprimanding of herself not only contributes to a fantastic punchline, but becomes the punchline, which, when offset with a sense of barely-post-teenage angst, and awkwardness, leads to a room full of raucous laughter. 

Well done, Rose Matafeo. Four and a half Merit Badges for you. 

[24daysofgiggles-blog]

Fundraiser for charity - @ChildCancerNZ

You may have read in my guest-blog on the comedy festival website that I have a gigantic A0 Comedy Festival poster which I’m going to get signed by as many performers in the festival, and then I shall run an auction on TradeMe for the poster’s sale.

The charity I have chosen is the Child Cancer Foundation. Not only are cancer charities very worthy of the support they can get, they are one of the main causes that receive my donations personally. As children are the future of comedy, and the future of this country, I’ve chosen to donate the funds to them. I'll sell the poster for whatever the highest bid is, but I know a figure I'd definitely like to hit, and that's my goal.

I'm going to be at the classic most nights, after the advertised shows I'm going to, if you are performing in this festival and you'd like to sign the poster, or if I've missed you, please let me know, I'll come find you, or we can meet up somewhere.

Below is a list of comedians who have signed the poster and this will be kept updated as frequently as is practical, as well as my gallery of the signatures. The list is in the order of the comedians who signed it.

Mark Scott

Greg Behrendt

Dan Willis

Nick Gibb

Janey Godley

Chris Martin – Comedian, not Coldplay

Adam Ethan Crowe

Brendhan Lovegrove

Steve Wrigley

Justine Smith

TJ McDonald

Andrew O’Neill

Craig Campbell

Jamie Adam

Steven Boyce

Heidi O’Loughlan

Rhys Mathewson

Marcel Lucont

Stephen K Amos

Urzila Carlson

Tom Furniss

Gordon Southern

Brendon Burns

Jeremy Elwood

Wilson Dixon

Shane O'Brien (Dead Cat Bounce, PleasureCraft)

Jimmy Walmsley (Dead Cat Bounce)

Demian Fox (Dead Cat Bounce, PleasureCraft)

Jesse Griffin

Cal Wilson

Bill Dawes

Brendon Green

Clayton Carrick-Leslie

Jamie Bowen

Milton Jones

Rhys Darby

Rose Matafeo

Steve Hughes

Terry Alderton

Anthony Wilson

Dan Brader

Guy Williams

Andy Clay

Jan Maree

The Boy with Tape on his Face

[24daysofgiggles-blog]

Guy Williams is On The Verge of Nothing...

... Except possibly a very bright career in comedy. This comedian, also nominated for the Billy T award. Doing his own intro, Williams managed to do his own introduction, in which he quoted a review, which I probably would have agreed with at the time it was written. 

Williams managed to easily pull off the best awkward low energy show I've seen since Hannah Gadsby, deliberately slowing down his pace as a "tease" to the audience, and though in some cases it seemed a bit excessive, and the crowd got more than a bit restless, he was clearly more than capable of recovering the crowd's attention, and pulling them back on board with an excellent punchline that got laughs from most. 

As a budding social commentator, stories of his budding relationships with NZ "Personalities" like JJ Feeney, and Richard Kahui managed to get some excellent laughs, as well as sharing his theories on how the current political layout of this country came to be.

A strong contender for this year's Billy T Award, especially since this show has been run once in the past, in Wellington, I'll be keeping a close eye on Guy Williams in the future. 

[24daysofgiggles-blog]

Knock Knock! Who's there? Tevita Manukia!

The first night of a season is always hard for a comedian. Especially if they're up for a Billy T award. And I can imagine it's doubly hard if they haven't been able to pre-run their season in Wellington .

An interesting performance from Tevita who won the Most Improved award at the Comedy Guild Awards last year, in a show that only lasted about 40 minutes, a surprising turn that could limit the Judges' favourable responses to this show.

This show covered a wide range of topics, from Tongan Parenting Techniques, to tips on developing, and then maintaining a healthy relationship and avoiding marriage.

This comedian has a fair distance to go to improve his show, but I suspect most of what was holding him back tonight was based around the fact that it was opening night, the first time he'd ever performed this show, and that by the end of the week, this show will be tightly polished, and running smoother than a finely tuned engine. 

Tevita Manukia gets a rating of Three Ta'ovala

[24daysofgiggles-blog]

A Short (HA!) summation of my weekend

Evening all,

Sorry this is a tremendously late blog, I realise I've not blogged about a show since thursday night when I blogged about Wednesday's shows. 

Thursday night was weird, got home about 2am friday, and had to do my day job (I have one). Here's what I've been up to since we last spoke:

The show-Count is now at 39

Saw Rhys Darby's This Way To Spaceship

Met Rhys Darby (probing photos below)

Went to the classic. Met many comics and got over a dozen signatures on the Poster For Charity. Tequila was involved. There was Cider. And a late night walk home 

Tried to sneak in the door at 1.45am, dropped the poster tube on the tile floor, attempt failed

Friday I rapped with Des Bishop (You have no idea how much I wish that was an exaggeration) 

Saw Gordon Southern

Tried to wait for the late show at the basement, but stumbled home exhausted

SLEEP

Woke Saturday afternoon

Almost turned up late to Class Comedians

Went home, cooked dinner

Saw Cal Wilson's final show

Saw Brendhan Lovegrove

Stalked out the Apocalypse Party at The Classic. Cheap Cider (no idea how that happened - no complaints)

Late show at the basement. Shots. Girly vodka drinks.

Home. Sleep. 

Raw Comedy Quest Final.

Now that the highlights have been covered, let me cover off some of the finer details:

Getting probed with (not by) Rhys Darby:

Rhys Darby's show This Way To Spaceship is freakin awesome. The show, brings Darby's classic sense of comedy, and sound effects, opened by the wonderful Steve Hughes had everything a Darby show has expected of it. A great laugh was had by all, especially the people four rows in front of me who WOULD NOT SHUT UP with "DO THE ROBOT" and cheering with the conclusion of every second line, whether it was a punchline or not. God loves your enthusiasm, but save it for church. 

Rapping with Des Bishop Just to clarify, I became the Hype Man at Des Bishop's show, "Des Bishop likes to bang". A great show that covers a lot of topics, from the importance of male-self-examination, to the awkwardness of the room when the word "WET" is used. I got to be the unnecessary guy yelling out the random words alongside Rap MC Mix Master Des Bishop.  But I wasn't the only on-stage extra, someone from Christchurch chose to sing Pokarekare Ana what was basically described as "To be the Chorus from a well known song that everyone can sing along to." I only had two small issues with this: 

I lived in Christchurch for two years, it's not known for it's acceptance of racial diversity - I'm fairly confident she didn't learn that song at school, and in fact learned it from THIS Air New Zealand ad from the 90s.

Anyone who has ever heard a single rap song in their life knows that Pokarekare Ana does not fit into the standard 4/4 beat required for this to work.

After putting my excessive-caucasian-ness on display by having to use the phrase "All the aunties in the crowd say OH YEAH!" I slunk back to my seat to get my poster and head down to the Basement, where I saw:

Gordon Southern's History of History...

... was an hour of sticker giving fun. I never thought history would provide such great comedic material, and when it didn't, Gordon's sampler provided the right track to get a giggle. 

The one thing this show needed was a Remote Control for the laptop with the presentation, Gordon. I'll try to get you one before you leave NZ. I rate it 3.75 Lightyears.

CLASS COMEDIANS SHOWCASE!  The Class Comedians concept is something that's held my interest since Rhys Mathewson introduced me to it months ago. Now, it would have been inappropriate for me to have gone to the workshops, considering I'm neither a student nor a comedian, and I don't like handcuffs or restraining orders. So I had to wait until the showcase. 

It was worth the wait, because twelve budding comedians came on stage and bought their best to their first ever gig. Congratulations to all twelve who graduated, and to Ravi who won the Nailed It On The Night award. Well done. Well earned.

Cal Wilson is All Ears!

Now, I reviewed this show earlier in the week, and decided immediately afterwards that I simply must see it again. So I did. The upside to seeing 9 shows between both screenings meant I had forgotten most of the punchlines. The downside to seeing 8 shows between both screenings meant that I'd forgotten how the NRI bit had made me gag at the first show. It worked just as well at the last show. I gagged. But had all the pleasure of knowing it was coming. 

The downside to this show was there was no exhibit of Cal getting felt up by the sound guy trying to fix a "loose connection". 

Brendhan Lovegrove...

...got his wish: I think he'll be Buried Happy (his show was called Bury Me Happy - there is no ill-plotting going on). His final show of this season was a sell-out. Mostly new material was bought to the stage, except for the material that was explicitly requested by an audience member. That and PARTY LINES! - You had to be there. 

It was an awesome show, though in the stairwell down from the Loft at Q I heard a woman say - I know I shouldn't have been laughing at some of the stuff - it wasn't very ladylike. All I can say to that is "LADY! IT'S A BRENDHAN LOVEGROVE SHOW! What else can you expect?"

Late Laughs with Justine Smith

Well. I thought I'd seen Jussi in full form at a late show in the past. Turns out I was dreadfully wrong. This show contained Justine Smith doing shots of Jager, Anil Desai's impressions, TJ McDonald tearing a wannabe heckler enough metaphorical new ones, that he's going to have to have metaphorical stitches to use less than a roll of bog-roll per movement. And Jamie Bowen making love to a cable reel. I think that's enough context.

I can't recommend late shows enough. The comedians are hilarious, they've been chosen for the lineup for a reason. And they do not hold back. And when the hecklers keep going up, they get paired back like a trekkie at a Star Trek Movie Marathon.

Raw Comedy Final

The Raw Comedy final was tonight. I'm going to write a full blog tomorrow, when I have had a chance to collect my thoughts fully, but I do wish full congratulations to Jamaine Ross for winning this year's Raw Comedy Quest, with his kick-ass performance, and his awesome beard. 

Goodnight.

[24daysofgiggles-blog]

@JeremyElwood's Political Animal Volume 1

Thanks to Jeremy Elwood I have two signed copies of Jeremy's Book, which are some of his selected blogs from his Political Commentary between 2009 and 2010. 

If you'd like to be in to win, email me at [email protected] with the subject line "Political Animal", before midday monday! 

[24daysofgiggles-blog]

@BrendonGreen - Everything Is Meaningless And Nothing Matters, Lol

I'm not sure what to say about a 28 year old man with an excessive affinity for Taylor Swift except possibly "Steve Wrigley Junior - With a guitar".

An interesting hour with some of the most creative lyricisms I've seen for quite a while, I could possibly see this show being somewhat like if Jimmy left Dead Cat Bounce to pursue a solo career. 

An excellent hour in a packed room - a very intimate environment, where the comedian may have ruined his chances with several of the women in the audience purely by speaking, but won the heart of many. 

A great way to spend an hour I'll give him a Five Guitar Solo rating.