Spike Milligan

One of my all time favourite sketches from Spike and his ensemble. Ridiculous miming - yes - but the timing! The Props! .... and that shared look... Priceless.

Disney Diversion

I'm a sucker for a beautiful collectable...





More here.

Some new designs

With all this talk of my acting lately I've forgotten to post some of the design work I've been doing behind the scenes. Consider it rectified!

Logo design for Trades Hall event during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2008

It's all over bar the pouting

Comedy, comedy, comedy. When the blazing sun /crisp winds of late March / early April come knocking on my bonce, I steady myself for the festival onslaught and hurriedly remind myself to immediately start storing sleep reserves (although I never do - I'm a fool). Then come the waves of laughter, the late night shenanigans and the liver bursting guzzling that would make Oliver Reed weep in his cups. So many acts, friends and strangers to see.

But....This year something was different.

I was exhausted. I simply couldn't handle the pace, let alone the comic demands and the imbalance of reality and fantasy ("Come to the Laugh Side Luke...") left me reeling.


That's not to say I didn't give it a red hot go...

The Lads: Jamie Robertson, Jon Williams, Jason Geary and Me c/o Buckley Photos

Late Nite Impro - because I directed this season the overwhelming sense of responsibility was huge (if somewhat unwarranted - I mean, c'mon, the show is so freaking simple...). The opening weekend was great, the cast hilarious and Rebecca De Unamuno and Deborah Frances White were perfect guests. And so it went for the rest of the run. We (Impro Melbourne) are lucky that the show has been around for quite some time now and has built up a strong following in Melb - hey, we never get reviewed by the major papers but we consistently sold out our houses which (in this fest) is an amazing feat in itself.

Paul McCarthy and I during Celebrity Theatresports - C/O the amazing Belinda at artsphotography.net.au

So much blue around the lack of audience members this year, it was a hot topic of conversation for quite awhile... "did you hear - last year at this time they had sold 400, 000 tickets - this year only 160, 000.........groan..."

My heart goes out to all the poor buggers who did it tough this year and I thank my lucky stars that the Trades ended up passing on the show Rik Brown and I had proposed. It would have been a financial nightmare.

The Hi Fi was rocking the first night of Patton Oswalt's set - although severely jetlagged he held the crowd in the palm of his hand and treated us to a solid set of no-frills stand up that had me doubled up in laughter. I enjoyed the unabashed silliness of the boys in Pappy's Fun Club (god-how refreshing it was to just relax and laugh with impunity), Scratch had me shaking my head in awe at their improvised prowess and narrative logic, Comicide was in turns: laugh out loud and (happy) groan inducing (yeah baby- you know who you are), Blank the Musical knocked my socks off - with a spine-bruising finale to die for, iMPro3 Shuffle had me in stitches onstage and off, Kristen Schaal was a horse and I looked at her dance, looked at her move etc etc... House of Anomalous was back in a tighter package and deserved bigger audiences..... and a whole lot more.....

And...who could forget standing in a laneway at 4am in the morning with Amanda, Susie, Arlen Konopaki, Kevin Gillese and Al Pitcher discussing the latest Mickey D misadventure, while two munted guys took a leak up against the opposite wall...

But the one stand-out-I'm-not-going-to-forget-this-in-a-hurry memory was when Rik broke his wrist during Celebrity Theatresports. I'll say this for him - when he does a pratfall - he COMMITS.

Celebrity Warm Up led by yours truly L-R Kevin Harrington, Derek Guille, Simon Dowling, John Chaplin-Fleming, Me, Daniel Cordeaux - artsphotography.net.au

It was wonderful to see so many friends again. I'm suffering from Post-Fest syndrome (feeling grey, wandering around the city streets at 3am looking for a venue and scratching at the door of the Trades Hall) and deeply envious of the guys in Sydney who are keeping the flag flying at the Cracker fest....

I need a comedy hit - and I need it now...

How Cool is Dean?

This work blows me away. Check out the ads in the Supertrain...

http://www.deangorissen.com/

Wha' Happened to March?

Wow. That went seriously fast... between now and the last pitiful post quite a few jolly times have flowed under the rainbow bridge to Happyfundrinkyland.

- The NSW National Theatresports Championships

If you scour back through the blogemporium to March last year you'll find an entry about how the mighty Theatresports team 'El Diablo' came, saw, laughed and conquered. This year we were fortunate enough to be asked back to defend the title. Jason Geary, Rik Brown, Rama Nicholas and myself packed our bags and flew up to Sydney. Before hitting the Enmore stage we stopped off at the Roxbury to watch Axis of Awesome strut their stuff and admire the dogged determination of the drug dog squad who raided the place. Inspector Rex goes abroad?

The Nationals were great and all teams had a moment in the spotlight. We had won the belt the last two years in a row and so it was with no regrets that we gladly handed it over to the NSW team "Wizard's Finger" who pipped us by one point. It was worth losing just to hear the roar that went through the crowd. Excellent stuff.

Made merry all through the night and then mooched my way around Watson's Bay the next day with the lovely Amanda. A glutton for punishment - I played that night in the all-new 4 coaster branded show - iMPro3 Shuffle. A great format and loads of fun to play.



- My Dad

Turned 60 - had a great dinner at Tolarnos
Had a Book Launch at Readings
Has a retrospective at Heide
He's having a good year I suspect...


- and of course... The 22nd Melbourne International Comedy Festival has begun.

This year I was asked to direct Impro Melbourne's flagship comedy show 'Late Nite Impro' (by directing - I mean casting and organising) and we launched last weekend to a sold out audience and a night of wonderful improvisation and comedy with our special guests Rebecca De Unamuno and Deborah Frances White. The format is new (it always is) and was invented by Jason Geary - "How About This?" - Directors pitch concepts for scenes and the performers choose what flies and what falls. Deceptively simple but hilarious. It plays every Friday and Saturday night at the Cloak Room at the Town Hall. Go here, here and here for more info.

I'm playing Friday March 28, Friday April 4 and Friday April 11.

I'll also be playing in Celebrity Theatresports on Saturday the 5th at the National Theatre - always a fun night and this year we've got some spectacular performers.

Note - although Julia Zemiro appears on the Flyer she will not be able to perform due to her MTC commitments unfortunately - but go and see her show another night!

Another show I'll be slutting myself out to is the Melbourne run of iMPro3 Shuffle which is on at the Kaleide Theatre. I'm playing on Sunday 6th and Tuesday 8th April. I'm hoping to squeeze in some time with the Scrabble Unscripted guys as well...(I'm such an impro whore...)


I got my name in lights with notcelebrity.co.uk

Shows to see:

Little Howard and the Magic Pencil of Life and Death.
Fran & Roxanne - Room for Rent
The House of Anomalous
Take The L out of Lover
Deborah Frances-White's "How to get almost anyone to want to sleep with you"
Axis of Awesome
Alien Sex Party
Eaton Alive
A Record or an OBE
Every Film Ever Made
Comicide: Death by Funny
Andrew McLelland's Guide to being a Modern Gentleman
So You Drink? You Can Dance!
Comic Book Funny

Have a great festival everyone - and if you see me with a stupid grin on my face, dancing at the Trades Hall or drinking at the Hi Fi or Flyering on the street - come up and say hi. Most likely - you'll get a hug.

p.s. keep an ear out for the term "Comedy Slapdown"

WTF?

I'm sitting on the couch, a box of Streets Blue Ribbon Cookies n' Cream sits empty, "Love Actually" is finishing on the tele and tears are streaming down my cheeks..............

Huh?

Bloody hell. I need to get out.