Melbourne Comedy Festival
Melbourne
Town Hal, March 28 to 20, 2003
Reviewer: Kate
Herbert
Boothby Graffo is funny
in a way unlike any of the other comics in the Comedy Festival. This makes him
a refreshing change from regular stand-ups. He is like a one man
Goons show. He does really goofy absurd material and plays plenty of silly
characters.
One of Boothby's
greatest skills is destroying his own illusions. He plays two characters
talking to each other y turning his head side to side to speak as each
character in turn. Once established, he
then proceeds to annihilate the illusion for us. "You don't exist,"
he tells his cute child character or his sweetie pie kitten.
He points out his performance
flaws constantly. Mistakes become gifts in his hands. When his Arabic accent
becomes French, he gets plenty of mileage out of it. In fact, almost every
accent he does degenerates hilariously into French.
His jokes are like
enormous mazes. We wander around inside them twisting our perception to keep up
with his racing patter and the innumerable detours he takes on the way. He uses random
collisions of ideas and bizarre word associations as he stares at us goggle
eyed, pulling faces.
His gentle political and cultural references
are well informed. He tells us he does not do observational comedy and then
attempts to prove it by trying it. His timing is impeccable,
his face mobile and h plays a mean guitar. I mean, he can really play the
guitar.
The original songs are
filled with eliptical references and absurd diversions. The one about Granny
on a life support system plus cocaine is a beauty. The Golf Song highlights the
sheer idiocy of the game and Bungie Girl is inspired. The song I'm always trying to do things I
haven't quite learned to do, has terrific lyrics ut some simple gags with guitar
chords.
He engages us immediately,
surprises us constantly and astonishes us with his twists and turns. When he talks about
traffic and trams in Melbourne or the weather it does not feel like any other comic
talking about the banal.
The audience is on a
wild roller coaster ride with Boothby Graffo and it is worth the ticket price.
By Kate Herbert
No comments:
Post a Comment