The apparent rise of Conservatism in today’s world presents the comedian plenty of fertile ground with which to strike comedy gold. Going under the name of the No Name Brothers, Toly and Alexis Sawenko attempt to mine this topic yet came up with mixed results.
Each of the boys presented short spots of stand up which were rather hit and miss. The jokes based more on observational comedy seemed to go down much better than purely political gear. This may have had more to do with the confidence with which the material was presented rather than the audience, with a number of fluffed lines and referring to back of hand notes littering one of the sets. This slight in professionalism was disappointing given that it was the second week of the festival.
The numerous sketches that comprised the remainder of the show were better than the stand up. Both of the performers portrayed all their characters with great enthusiasm. Quite elaborate costuming brought these sometimes two dimensional characters to life. The opportunity for one of the boys to frock up ensured the punters had a hearty chuckle. Their inexperience shone through a number of times with a lot of giggling mid sketch. It was great to see them enjoying their own performance but it disrupted the flow considerably.
It was the material they were performing that occasionally let them down. Some of the sketches pursued obvious targets and had punchlines that could easily be telegraphed but overall they had plenty of great ideas. At times they weren’t implemented in the best way, often ignoring the principles of humour. For example, a sketch set in a courtroom flew in the face of the ‘Rule of Threes’ by including a forth defendant purely to make a topical reference, when the third defendant provided the perfect punchline with which to end the sketch. Other sketches also went beyond the obvious punchline to make an additional one that often seemed laboured.
With each sketch requiring a costume change, there were often lengthy delays between them. The audience was faced with a dark stage and not even some music to keep them entertained. The boys did make an effort with the second pause of the show by including some witty self-referential jokes about the delay, but the dark, silent pauses to the show continued through to the end.
The show was a valiant effort by a pair of young performers who had plenty of good ideas. With only one previous comedy outing two years ago, some further writing and performing experience would have been preferable before presenting this show to a paying audience.
’Conservatism’ runs Thurs to Sat until April 28. See the “Comedy Festival Website”:http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/season/2007/show/174 for further details.