Brighton Must-Sees [BRIGHTON FRINGE 2012]

JUST A QUICK RUNDOWN OF THREE COMEDY ACTS THAT WERE SHOWN FOR FREE AS PART OF THE BRIGHTON FRINGE.

Host - Dec Munro
The Thursday 17th performance was warmed up by Dec from Test Tube Comedy, who tried to get the audience in the right mood by informing us that the plan for the night was to "Say 'Hi', high five and then start with the public sex". As I turned up for this event with my mum and brother, you would imagine that this would lead to embarrassment. Thankfully, my family aren't too shocked by humorous insinuations of incest - so a bit of incestuous banter made the room chuckle uncomfortably. 


Dec got the audience is a cheeky, positive mood and made us feel engaged in proceedings - setting the stage for the first act to really knock us out, yeah? Hmmm...


Mike Sheer
The first act was a young Canadian guy who begun with more crude and controversial jokes to make the audience a little uncomfortable. These focused on hatred of Jewish people (the comedian describing himself as Jewish - and hating Jewish people too), jokes about Canadians and Americans and hints at darker jokes as well.


Sadly, the room didn't warm to these themes - I don't think anyone was happy laughing along too much about Jew hatred and the Canadian/American stuff was a little lost on us (is there some sort of tension there?).


The set wasn't helped by a Brightonian heckler with an Irish accent - so the comedian tried to make jokes based on his accent - to which the heckler kept knocking him back with "I'm from Brighton, you jack ass". Yeesh.


Nick Purves
The second comedian described himself as a boarding school kid and sported a very posh accent. Luckily, he was able to joke about his upbringing in a way that made the crowd laugh - his anecdote about a schoolyard disagreement over "Lord of the Flies" that turned to fisticuffs made the majority of the tough room giggle.


He managed to hold his own through the fifteen minute set, going through other events in his life in a lighthearted fashion - including overcoming his speech impediment which he described in humorous scenes which were very amusing to watch. A good performance. 


Sajeela Kershi
The final comedian was a woman who described herself as coming from a posh town in Surrey but was raised with Asian Muslim traditional values. Her humour was quite centred on issues surrounding the Islam faith, such as her dirty fantasies about Allah sucking on a pork sausage and her experiences as a child... with Elton John.


Sajeela was a confident and talented performer - she took charge of the room as she walked on and got plenty of laughs with her outrageous humour. Getting the audience involved too - she accused one gentleman of coming to her home town solely for dogging purposes. Niiiiice. 


She was possibly the most popular act of the show - providing laughs throughout and showing off her skills as a great comedy storyteller. Highly entertaining.

A nice sneak preview of some of the acts who have bigger shows during the Fringe - I'm not sure how many of the audience would have paid to go and see the full acts but they were certainly a good laugh in fifteen minute slots.

Feel free to post comments or contributions to improve the experience!

Eccentronic: We Won't Rock You [BRIGHTON FRINGE 2012]

CHEESY SPECTACULAR WITH 
BUNDLES OF CREATIVITY AND 
TONS OF GEEKY CHARM.


ALTHOUGH NOT THE HIGHEST QUALITY
PRODUCTION YOU'LL EVER SEE
THE ABSURD ENERGY CARRIED IT OFF.

This is John making and handing out cheese toasties during the show. Yes he did.

What's It All About Then?

Free comedy show held on Saturday 19th May at the Caroline of Brunswick pub as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival 2012. Eccentronic are made up of John Callaghan and Ms Hypnotique.


Described as "a zesty melee of electronic musical mash-ups and oddball humour" featuring songs about "...time-wasting, socks and visiting the Welsh town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch".

They moved around so much that it was very difficult to get any decent photos of them!

So Is It Any Good?

+++ Geeky Thrills +++

This was an exceptionally geeky show - and that is meant as a MASSIVE compliment. Starring a guy who quotes one of his biggest influences as Timmy Mallett and a gal who rocks out in a corset playing the theremin, this show is a stadium-filling show-stopping musical masterpiece... condensed into an hour-long slightly-corny pub-back-room show.


Featuring musical nods to Queen (obvs), N.W.A., Electric Light Orchestra, Pet Shop Boys, Sisqo, Pulp and Black Lace - all worked into songs concerning cheffing, coming "Straight Outta Trumpton" and the overwhelming desire to make cheese toasties. Which they then did while on stage. And passed round to the audience. Totally awesome.


The song about the Welsh town - Llanfair-whatsit - was equally brilliant. While sounding like a gimmick, they did actually manage to write a chorus that featured the name broken up into chunks in a sort of Kraftwerk fashion (something like Llan, Llanfair, Llanfairpwyllgwyngyll etc.). To round that off, there was a Welsh guy in the audience who gave us a fluid demonstration of how the name sounds in the native accent - to a huge round of cheers from everyone else!

The subtitles for the song about that Welsh town - maybe as a prompt for the band?

+++ Fun-Filled Blitz +++

The show was energetic from start to finish - the performers "bigged themselves up" in such a humorous and bombastic fashion that the audience came round to them very quickly. They then broke into a song about frying that involved a frying pan to the face (nice!). Before the show was finished, there had been several costume changes, a variety of styles and instruments, an in-depth analysis of the workings of musical comedy and just the right level of audience participation so as to make it enjoyable inclusive.


They had down moments, the slow-tempo version of Thong Song played with a minuature hand barrel piano added a nice change in pace while still being hilariously funny. The last few songs were a middle class rap - with some very bad ("bad" bad - not "good" bad) street dance moves - and a audience-based version of Agadoo/Itsy-Bitsy-Teeny-Weeny-Yellow-Polka-Dot-Bikini that rounded off the evening well. 


We were then asked what final number we would like: a cleverly worded piece by John that artistically wraps up the show or a Queen-based number from Ms Hypnotique that has a grand-finale feel to it?


We actually went for the first one - obviously the audience was like me - they actually really got into the witty, geeky parody writing and wanted one last cheeky, cheesy tune to close things. It was indeed satisfactorily cheesy and it was fun to watch as they performed a fairly complicated canon piece...  fairly badly. We all laughed our socks off because of that though.

--- Slightly Quality Issues ---

So just to offer some constructive feedback on where I think it could have been improved - the volume in the room was a bit offset so that the electronic backing tracks often drowned out whatever jokes were being made by the performers. People near the front laughed a lot but maybe they could hear the performers directly. Further back you could hear faint mumbling and a lot of synth for some numbers. 


Another point is that some of the singing and theremin playing was a little too crap to be funny at points - big long notes wailed off-key and theremin floating loosely near the tune they were trying to emulate (so during one song I had to guess where we were in the tune because it was nowhere near). When they asked a member of the audience to try the theremin - and a randomer just fancied giving it a go - the noise produced was actually slightly better! Ah well, this may have been that on the tracks where Ms Hypnotique was playing the theremin that the speakers setup made it difficult to hear her part - but it was often distinctly wobbly at points.

The rap numbers were good... I think.... but very hard to hear.

Conclusions

This show was great fun -
 they cheated me out of my entry fee though:
they did, in fact, rock me.

The atmosphere was spot-on but perhaps the sound system could be improved upon. 

The show didn't take itself seriously and the guys just went all out to provide a jolly good laugh. Nice work.

Feel free to post comments or contributions to improve the experience!
Any images in this review are taken by Brighton Games Trader.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel [FILM]

Overview
British comedy/drama released in cinemas on the 24th February 2012 and starring Judi Dench, Celia Imrie, Bill Nighy, Dev Patel, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson and Penelope Wilton (pretty much the whole older Brit-Com Crew!). This varied bunch of Brits make their way (for one reason or another) to India for a stay in an exotic, luxury hotel destination - The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - which turns out to have been slightly oversold in its description....

Major Points
Charming and Poignant - This is a tale about people losing the lives they once had, which  leads to a state of crysallis during the middle of the film, before blossoming once more as something anew. The interweaving stories aren't particularly far-fetched, in fact most of the characters could well be people you know, however each story is touching and emotional. In particular, the stories of Tom Wilkinson's high court judge and Maggie Smith's forcibly-retired housekeeper are at the same time wonderfully characterised and desperately sad. It is only through the fantastic mix of comedy moments combined with the positive and uplifting message that this film stops short of being a sob-fest.


The Hotel - Each of the characters has a back story which they bring to the hotel, and in their own way contribute to the development of the hotel itself. The hotel serves as a metaphor for the guests, stuck in a state of inertia, despair and decay at the beginning of the film but that refuses to stay down and by the end of the film is enjoying a rebirth of vitality. In accepting that the past is over and that you need to adapt, change and grow in order to thrive in the modern world is as crucial for the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel as it is for the cast. The story of the hotel itself seems slightly pushed to one side for the most part of the film, serving as a context in which the British tourists' stories are set, but by the end of the film it becomes clear just how inextricably linked the guests are to the hotel, and vice versa.


Laugh Out Loud Funny - Well I have a soft spot for most of these actors anyway, and this film has them deliver some of their funniest lines ever. Not just the sort of laughs that have the whole theatre in stitches, but also a few lines that split the audience - Maggie Smith's character is exceptionally racist at the beginning of the film, and her disdain and mistrust when addressing people of other races is cringingly-hilarious. Dev Patel's character, while it took a lot longer for me to come round to enjoying him, delivers some fantastic lines based on his grand plan for the hotel - "You see, in England, they can't stand old people. So this is where I make the hotel a success! I have developed an incredible idea - outsourcing old age!". Basically I spent the majority of the film with a smile on my face, and can still look back and chuckle at some of the lines in Marigold Hotel - the mark of a truly great comedy.


Conclusions

Strikes that balance of poignant and hilarious that only Brit-Coms can achieve so perfectly. Filled with a superb cast of diverse and well-rounded characters that evolve and grow right in front of your eyes.

While having many familiar elements, the film manages to have some fairly shocking revelations throughout - all of which only serves to add to the film's appeal.

Truly, there is very little that I can say to complain about this film - I absolutely loved it and if you enjoy other similar films (such as Calendar Girls or the Full Monty) then I have no doubt that you'll love this too!

The video in this review is from Youtube and is provided courtesy of
http://www.youtube.com/user/ClevverMovies