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It is amazing what a difference a theme can make to a show. A collection of random observances develop a momentum which can carry the punter through the slower spots once linked to a theme. Which is sort of what 1998 Moosehead award recipient Corrine Grant has achieved with What’s A Nice Girl Like You..? Ostensibly devised around stories of the Pub, Grant has found plenty of room to incorporate other material, from Chapel Street fashion shopping to inflammable grannies. It is Grant’s stories, however, of a hens night gone wrong and the freak in a pub who includes you in the conversation he’s having with himself, that tie it all together.
Although not hard edged Hicksian political ranting, Grant’s polished performance still delivers a few gentle moments of uncomfortable (self-) recognition amongst the laughs. In her slightly gawky physical manner, Grant tells you the things about pubs, drinking and picking up that you knew anyway, but were in denial about. And in the more-testosterone-than-the-Bulgarian-women’s-weightlifting-team world of comedy, the dick jokes are mercifully kept to the few derived from the names of ex-boyfriends.
Whilst Corinne Grant has a way to go before she matches the top pantheon of Australian comedy acts, she has produced a solid, humorous show that is worth seeing, if for no other reason than this – in what other venue than the Victoria Hotel Cocktail Bar will the recipe for a fluffy duck be painted on the wall?
out of
It has been three years since a long-haired Boothby Graffoe last ambled on to a Melbourne Comedy Festival Stage to tell us stories about impaling his bum on a spiked fence after taking cocaine. Much has changed since then: his hair (now a cleaner cut short style); the venue (Lower Town Hall rather than the best-described-as-intimate Powder Room); and the change from frenetic youthful abandon to laissez-faire coolness. The Boothby Graffoe who sauntered onto stage this year, guitar in one hand and pint of Guinness in the other, is a comedian trying for the kind of laconic stage presence that Anthony Morgan creates so effortlessly, and not quite making it.
Graffoe’s style is traditional, with plenty of short joke-stories and songs. Within these restraints, his show works, but the lack of an overall theme betrays a performer still trying to find his audience. The crowd did not always follow him on his absurdist forays, and his attempts at (insufficiently) outrageous sexist humour almost caused them to turn – they clearly preferred xenophobia and taking the piss out of Germans and Americans, giving Graffoe scope for his range of dodgy accents.
Not a naturally "funny" person, Graffoe may need time to hone and integrate his local material into a routine that audiences will respond to. That he is capable of this is evidenced by his entertaining songs. At present the show is amusing rather than outright hilarious, but it may mature with time.
GADFLIES WARNING: For those trying to avoid these ubiquitous comedy festival creatures, be warned – Phil Moriarty accompanies Graffoe on clarinet for two of the songs.
out of