Akmal’s show started over fifteen minutes late and it almost filled the ballroom at the Victoria Hotel (excellent for first full-paying night). The show starts with a five minute pre-cinema style ad/promo video, then Akmal comes on and does a five minute piece of video magic where he has a fight with himself. He then introduces his special guest (is someone special if they are on every night?) Joel Ozborn. Joel does a ten minute session mostly about living in America for the last four years and his material was on a fair few topics that seem to be permeating through the festival. Still, he had a good delivery and the crowd enjoyed his material.
Akmal then comes back and he get an hour of material starting with how tough it is being of Egyptian descent living in Australia, which was greatly helped by having some people with a similar background in the front row. He then touched on the Cronulla riots and the current political situation in Australia. Apart from this, he was riffing on audience members and flitting from subject to subject. The show ended with Joel coming back on and we received a show and tell of stuff they bought from an op-show somewhere in Melbourne.
Akmal is familiar to a lot of people from his appearances on the Glasshouse and Rove. He is a friendly and personable entertainer and the standard of performance was high throughout the show. Just remember the show runs for 75 minutes and will probably start late most nights. Also if two old fat drunk men decide to sit directly behind you, expect to hear a lot of random mumbling and the back of your chair being kicked constantly throughout the show!
For booking details go to Akmal