Kissing Frogs , Feb 7, 1997

Kissing Frogs by Glynn Nicholas

Comedy Theatre throughout  February, 1997

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around Feb 7, 1997

No worries! She'll be right! Glynn Nicholas is really bloody charming - and he gets away with murder on stage because of it. He does sentimental old love songs, Hollywood-schlock romantic narrative and he sneaks in some of the tackiest bottom gags in the known universe. But he looks like a naughty toddler afterwards so we let him.

Kissing Frogs returns after a four-year spell in comedy mothballs and it is Nicholas's best live show. Goofy Geoff's romance with cabaret singer, Gloria (Kim Deacon) gives a sound narrative on which to base silly stand-up routines about the great Aussie Dream, the Great Aussie, a great dream about rain. He laces the social commentary with schmaltz and naughtiness. In fact, the whole show is stuffed full of pathos and jokes, cliches and songs.

Still a masterly grotesque parody is Nicholas's old familiar, Sergeant Smith, who mixes his cliches and swears like a trouper. The central Frog who turns into the proverbial Prince is Geoff, a country yokel who has fashioned his own encyclopaedia and his own particular grammatical chaos. Geoff secretly writes romantic poetry for Gloria who scoffs cynically - until she falls in love with him. They share an interest in frogs, you see.

Nicholas's humour is old-fashioned warm and comfortable. The audience are putty in his hands. He is well supported on stage by musician and ‘atmos-man’, Ross Nobel and by Kim Deacon and her sassy jazz vocals.

But we must not forget Clive, the aforementioned Frog or Boofy, Geoff's bitzer hunting dog. These two, in addition to a stage full of invisible objects and walk-on characters such as the club bouncer and the Kenworth driver, are created through the "magic of mime". It is all so effortless it is easy to forget how difficult it is to make something out of nothing.

The show, at nearly two and a half hours, is too long, but in spite of the cornball jokes, the Las Vegas lurex curtains and sometimes gushing sentimentality, this is a really entertaining show.

KATE HERBERT