When you arrive at a comedy venue to be confronted by someone dressed as a banana in bondage gear, you know you’re in for an evening of interesting entertainment. For the past few months the crew at Guerrilla Group Entertainment have been putting on monthly themed nights featuring a varied assortment of acts. After exploring Vaudeville and Halloween, November’s event was based around the Theatre of the Absurd.
On the second Friday of the month, Guerrilla Group take over the function room at the Station 59 pub in Richmond. The name comes from the fire station next door, whose many call outs managed to provide some coincidentally appropriate audio cues for some of the performers.
Booking a variety night can be a challenge at the best of times, even more so when attaching a theme to the show. The acts were predominantly stand up acts who happened to have some absurdist material in their arsenal. “Anyone For Tennis?”:comic, “Michael Plumb”:comic, “Luke Whitby”:comic and MC “Justin Kennedy”:comic all presented their left of centre routines but it was “Dean Eizenberg”:comic in his banana outfit who cranked up the weirdness up to eleven with a hilarious fruit based routine.
In addition to the stand up component of the show, we were treated to music by a singer/guitarist going by the name of “Egg”. Her inclusion in the program was a little strange, performing before the official introduction of the night and during the “break”, posing the question: was she a feature artist or just background music? This presented her with the difficult task of performing to a number of chatting punters up the back. She had a posse of friends in the front row giving her their undivided attention during both sets who were clearly there only to see her. They chatted loudly during the comedians time on stage, giving them an often challenging experience. Although chatting during music is sometimes seen as acceptable, talking during stand up is not. In this case, music and comedy didn’t exactly mix. Her songs didn’t exactly embrace the Absurd theme, but she managed to convince “Duff”:comic, who was there as a punter, to perform some crazy dancing to her final tune.
The screening of CJ Fortuna’s short film “Seagulls” was the evening’s film component. This film from the 2006 Melbourne International Comedy Festival Short Film Competition was in keeping with the theme. Also included was the acrobatic duo “Air Antics” who had cute kitschy costuming, a slightly saucy attitude and impressed the punters with their physical prowess.
The night’s proceeding experienced a number of hiccups that disrupted the flow of the show. A last minute tune up by the musical acts and the complex setting up of the video projection system resulted in some long pauses. Being the third event in the series, such mishaps should have been sorted out beforehand. Ever the consummate professional, Justin Kennedy was able to fill the dead spots somewhat to make the waiting less painful. The addition of an exit to the Beer Garden located right in front of the stage added to the distractions.
Every show, prizes are awarded for the best dressed punters with this month’s winners including a gentleman dressed as a strange birdman and a girl who attended as a tennis player. Unfortunately the theme seemed to prove too challenging, resulting in only a handful of costumes. Perhaps next month’s Christmas theme will be easier for the punters to embrace.
Despite being rough around the edges, the show was an entertaining, although slightly long, night of amusement. It was an ambitious project to present such a variety show, but it was a satisfying experience.
The final event for the year will be the Charitable Comedic Christmas on December 14th. All proceeds will go to charity. Keep an eye on their “Myspace Page”:http://www.myspace.com/guerrillagroupentertainme or our gig listings for full details.