Funny Bone -- The 7th Annual Deakin Comedy Revue

In a word, BuST Co’s 7th annual comedy revue is brave. Sketch comedy isn’t an institution in Australia (as it is in the US and UK), nor am I familiar with any other company in the state that has an annual comedy revue – especially not one that has survived seven years. Sketch comedy is also that strange animal that can’t be caught, tamed, or easily categorised. The cast’s bravery extends beyond purely being on stage in such a show to the fact that they wrote (individually then collectively) all eighty-three sketches in the two-act show.

The show opened to Duck Sauce’s “Barbra Streisand,” introducing each of the cast by name through, I assume, the power of www.GoBarbra.com. Each member of the cast had their own black shirt with the pink Funny Bone logo and their name embroidered in yellow across the chest. A simple and effective costuming choice that was cohesive for the audience and will also act as a memento for the cast.

The room at the top of the Colonial Hotel was a long ‘black’ box, curtained along one side so it could open up as a band room, a transformation that began immediately once the show was complete. The stage itself was set to the right at one end and was half the width of the room. There was a projector screen in the middle of the same wall and a sound table on the far left that I guess doubles as a DJ desk for the previously mentioned band. If my description worked you can probably see that all of the action took place on the right hand side of the room with nothing on the left and only the projector in the middle. A central stage would probably have been nicer for the audience or two stages at either side. This option would have allowed for faster changes during blackouts with the opposite stage being set during the current sketch. This would also have avoided a couple of small collisions that occurred as the cast moved on and off the stage simultaneously through a gap in the side curtain.

To continue with technical concerns, I could make eye contact with Spencer Hadlow through a gap in the curtain while he was making announcements. The Windows Media Player controls were visible on screen at the start and end of every video. The projector was ‘turned off’ by a member of the stage crew who walked over to it and put a piece of cardboard in front of the globe. With no commencement announcement some of the audience had to battle their way back to their seats from the bar in pitch black. These are all small points but would make a huge difference for the audience and to the overall feel of the show.

The sketches themselves were, as discussed, devised by the cast, usually individually, and then brought to the group for development/critique. Clearly a product of Gen Y, a majority of the sketches were built on puns or inverted stereotypes: ‘speed’ dating, an actually ‘Savage’ Garden, the clearly gay son nervously coming home to tell his parents that he’s straight, a ‘strip’ search -- you probably get the idea. There were a number of recurring themes throughout the night, including gags about Collingwood supporters and completely innocuous situations that, out of context, could be considered a product of the audience’s ‘dirty’ minds. There were also a number of political-driven sketches, most noticeably the train passenger being tasered for having their feet on the seats.

The songs were a highlight for me; the videos not so much. It would have been really nice to hear a backing track behind Hadlow’s “Vagina Decliner” song, and Nick Rudich’s “Ladyboy” was much more effective in the second half with acoustic guitar and air drum accompaniment. I particularly enjoyed Greta Georgiou’s comment on the current tendency in pop music to sound like the singer is having a ‘stroke’ using Rihanna’s “Under my umbrella / (Ella ella, ay ay).”

Sketches that were well received by the audience included the new iTouch Kids from Apple, the hands threesome, and the hand jobs/cheeseburger conundrum, while the ‘getting your box smashed’ pun fell to nervous groans. Some ran a little longer than felt natural. We understood that the best popcorn was at the bottom of the box in Nick’s lap because there’s more butter down there. The joke had lived its natural life and was funny enough without the audience needing to be goaded that it was just their dirty minds and I felt the prolongation lowered the humorous impact.

Hadlow’s ‘Titanic: The Musical in five minutes’ finale was a highlight of the evening, presenting the standard plot with pop songs (The Lonely Island’s “I’m on a Boat,” etc.) before closing with a raucous rendition of “Under the Sea” from The Little Mermaid. Overall an entertaining evening that would have been tighter with more attention to technical detail. It was a particular pleasure to watch the cast having such a good time with their own material.