With sketch, stand up, poetry and song, “Smorgasbord” putson quite a spread for the hungry comedy audience. Joining us in the flesh were Dave Ryan and Dianne Armstrong with the rest of the Jim’s crew with us via video.
Dave was the first to take to the stage to do a short set of stand up. He has a very low key stage presence, delivering the jokes with a minimum of fanfare. His material consisted of a fair chunk of observational gear that was consistently funny, but not always of the gut busting variety. I noticed that he had the habit of inserting the punchline before the actual completion of the joke. This created the situation where my laughter had died down to silence when he paused at the spot where the laughter usually goes. Despite this he was able to keep a smile on my face for the whole show.
Armed with a solid set of stand up, Dianne graced the Glitch stage next. She had a very similar stage manner to Dave and coincidently, she also continued some of jokes past their punchline in much the same way as he had. With material and poems about third world poverty and the atrocities at Abu Gareb, she took on the role of the show’s commentator on world issues. This set and another one later in the show were thought provoking as well as funny. She even took us to Wrong Town with a hilarious joke at the end which appealed to my sometimes sick sense of humour.
After the stand up, a series of filmed segments were shown on the Glitch big screen. Short, slick and punchy these sketches were fantastic. We were treated to pieces such as keeping an unlikely pet, activities not suited to Tourettes sufferers and a failed attempt at doing the Napisan challenge. The video pieces were followed by some live sketches performed by Dave and Dianne which while not quite as tight as the filmed stuff, were great fun. I was impressed with the way they used the big screen to project a backdrop for some of the sketches. This helped with the set up, allowing them to get to the jokes quickly.
The musical component included Dave’s reinterpretation of the song “Babylon” by David Gray. I had personally not familiar with Mr Gray (the only D Gray I know is of the ugly variety!) of this song so some of the jokes were lost on me. The read along lyrics and images of the singer on the screen combined with Dave’s blatant miming on guitar kept me happy nonetheless.
When Dave hit the stage for his second stand up spot, he really hit his stride. He told an extended story about going shopping with his wife which was fantastic. His story telling in this section was great and made for quite an engaging tale with many jokes and humourous observations throughout.
There was even some funny stuff in their closing credits. Unfortunately then were kind of stepped on as the cast & techie started packing up during it with the house lights up. Overall it was a fun show and I am interested in seeing what project they tackle next.
The link Smorgasbord has all the information you need.