Hailing from Brisbane, Hooray For Everything are, at first glance, your standard musical comedy act. They are three young, good looking, albeit scruffy guys armed with three voices and a guitar. Looking at these innocent looking fellas, you would expect an hour of light, amusing tunes. It is midway through their second number that you are hit with the slightly darker tone that lurks beneath the fluffy exterior.
The opening number was a clever “Sound Check” tune that as well as introducing us to their characters, provided a vehicle for playing with music performance and song conventions. With tongues firmly planted in cheeks, the subsequent songs took ironic pot shots at targets such as hippies, Peter Garrett and vegetarianism. They returned to the lighter material later in the set with a pun filled song about biscuits that was groan inducing, especially when they felt the need to pause after every line to ram the puns down our throats. We were also treated to the common party trick of the simultaneous performance of three songs with a common chord structure that was executed rather well.
The boys were quite tight musically with the ability to create the most exquisite harmonies. For some variety, recorders were featured in a number of the songs as well as a keyboard. A majority of their tunes had rather abrupt endings that left the audience unsure when exactly to applaud. This seemed to throw them a little, possibly thinking that the song hadn’t gone down too well when it actually had.
Their between song banter was at times a little awkward and stilted but this could have been attributed to opening night nerves. We were also constantly reminded of their political stance and that the lyrics were very much parodies. This slightly condescending attitude didn’t give the audience enough credit for being savvy in the ways of musical humour and threatened to rub the punters the wrong way.
The opening night audience included a number of quite vocal and possibly intoxicated punters whose interjections threatened to make matters worse, however the guys handled these rude intrusions with consummate professionalism. Instead of shooting down the hecklers as a stand up act would, they instead played along with the ideas thrown at them to some extent before getting things back on track.
Hooray For Everything are a welcome addition to the world of musical comedy. Their beautiful delivery of the songs make them an act to keep an eye out for in the future.
This show runs from Tuesday – Saturday until the 29th April. Go to “Hooray for Everything”:http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/season/2007/show/285/ for booking details.