Class Clowns is an annual competition run by the Melbourne International Comedy Festival which draws on high school students from all around the country to come forward, attend workshops with established comedians and compete in this national competition. “Al Pitcher”:comic took the reigns adeptly for the Grand Final of Class Clowns this year, performing the MC duties with energy and vigour, hitting the right balance between addressing his material to adults and the school aged children (the latter demographic making up a large proportion of the audience).
I am in genuine awe of the kids who come out and participate in a competition such as this, and this crop was certainly deserving of said awe. I often think of younger comedians on the circuit such as “Tommy Dassalo”:comic as being astonishingly youthful, but the kids that appeared here made those guys seem positively middle aged. None more so than the first act for the afternoon, the baby faced Lukas Blom.
Lukas is a straight stand up comedian performing material about the differences between the country and the city. His likeable, laid back demeanour belies a confidence in his approach, however he could really afford to loose the camp accent he uses to denote anyone who is a more sophisticated city type, a trait typical of his characterisations overall which buy into stereotypes quite a lot.
Following him came The South Estonian Acting Troupe (David Bucknell, Ross McKinnon, Drew Modern) who combine visual silliness , verbal games and song in a “dominant character plus two stooges” type set up. This material all worked well, feeling quite derivative of Fry & Laurie”:comic and “Monty Python”:comic at times, with even a touch of “Tripod”:comic at the end. The South Estonian Acting Troupe tied all of these influences up into a neat and unusual package which they made their own.
Catherine Hall, who was awarded a ‘Runner Up’ spot, was next up doing a piece of straight stand up, touching on subjects such as red hair and boys, and the odd dash of two dimensional political commentary. She is at her best when disclosing her true nerdiness and she showed real sign of stage presence, reminding me of “Courtney Hocking”:comic when she shone at her best moments.
Following Catherine was a duo called The Magical Typewriter (Daniel Archer, and Zack Munday). This act made me feel quite uneasy as it seemed to be an amateurish version of “The Umbilical Brothers”:comic. It’s natural for performers’ influences to shine through in their work (especially with performers as young as this). But this was more than just derivative, it felt like a straight copy of the very distinctive style of The Umbilical Brothers. My beef here is not with Daniel or Zack, my beef is with these ‘industry professional’ who let this performance come this far without directing the boys to try and develop a variation, their own voices, their own style. In the end I felt very odd watching something performed on stage at an MICF event which reeked so strongly of someone else’s act. As far as critiquing the performance, again whoever has directed these boys has done them a real injustice, as their performance is so strongly reminiscent that they can only suffer by inevitable comparisons. However, they still received a ‘Runner Up’ commendation so obviously the judges didn’t share my feelings.
Aaron Nobes, the ultimate winner of the competition, hit the stage next with a very different style of piece. Trading on his own geekiness he led a quiet, but nerve wracked tirade, outlining a conspiracy theory against his school’s SRC. I liked Aaron and I really felt he had something here with his slightly deranged ‘geek out for justice’ spot, but I was a bit surprised to see him win, as what he has here strikes me more as the kernel of something really great, rather than something that’s developed it’s legs completely.
The real highlight for me came next with F.O.B. (Sarah Le, Mystery Tat). These girls hit the audience hard with some of the funniest disturbance of preconception I’ve ever seen. They challenged Asian stereotypes beautifully, contrasting them (at least at first) with their authentic identities as regulation, pissed of teenage girls. They were hilarious, but they didn’t maintain this throughout, dropping off into straight characterisation, with the spot falling away sharply at the very end. But if these two girls can develop a solid five minutes based on what they gave the audience in the first two minutes they’ve got something very hot and excitingly original on their hands.
Freneche Banovich walked on stage dressed in a flannie and blunnies, playing a country girl persona. Likeable enough with her natural prettiness contrasting well against her characterisation, there’s the genesis of a good character here, and while she has a pretty good call back joke about shutting gates, overall she doesn’t have the material here to back up the character.
Another highlight for me was Mitch ‘n’ Max (Sarah McCreanor, Alexandra Mitchell). Coming on with a song about being addicted to Myspace, they set the energy high but unfortunately the music was too loud (not the fault of Sarah or Alexandra) so it was really difficult to hear what the girls were singing. The superior part of the set however was the second part which was a mimed MSN conversation. This showed some real originality in content and style and showed the girls to be very good physical comedians, with Sarah shining particularly in this department.
The Gleesom Threesome (Paris Burns, Cymatha Heather, Tess Stapleton-Clark) do what they say on the label. Three, sweet, cute, ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ girly girls, enjoying they’re girly girlness. A lack of substance to the material and a bit of confusion to the dialogue sees them a bit short of laughs for most of the spot, but they do capture a lovely mimed moment at the end, with Jess grabbing the physical comedian glory in this moment.
Ella Reed, Toby Silcock and Emily Beeton, three individual stand up’s each had a spot later in the program and so had to fight audience fatigue plus compete with some of the higher energy group acts. Ella held herself well on stage but her material need a bit more sophistication. She was the only straight stand up all night that jumped from topic to topic, without any real element of storytelling. Whilst there’s nothing wrong with that in itself, she just didn’t have the material, overall, with only a couple of jokes at the end hitting it. Toby covered material on pamphlets, the ACT and reality TV. He kept a steady energy throughout and he was at his best when discussing topics personally applicable to him, with the reality TV material letting him down at the end. Like Toby, South African Emily was also at her best when talking about topics personally relevant to her, with a section where she speaks down to the ‘thick Aussies’, explaining what ‘her people’ call a ‘toilet’ really hitting the mark. Ultimately the spot carried through by Emily’s likeability and strong stage presence.
There were a couple of production flaws which one wouldn’t expect from an event of this magnitude which is produced with the full backing of the MICF. There were substantial gaps between acts, meaning that Al Pitcher was forced to repeatedly attempt to re-rouse the audience after applause petered out, thereby affecting the overall flow and energy of the show. The ever present television cameras at this event suggests that the priority here was not the audience present at the venue but the potential TV audience who will, undoubtedly, get the smoothly edited version.
Also, the announcement of the awards was muddled and muddied by judge and presenter “Josh Thomas”:comic who is certainly a competent enough to be able to handle a relatively simple job such as this. The upshot of this was that there was audience confusion when the winners were announced, leaving poor Aaron Nobes awkwardly standing, almost in the wings, with his trophy, whilst the audience remained unsure of what exactly was happening, thereby robbing Aaron of the applause he was due. It only became clear what had happened once Al Pitcher regained control and brought Aaron centre stage, as he deserved.
Ultimately though, I was deeply impressed with all of these acts. In particular there was a real sense of stage presence that you wouldn’t find in many comedians several years senior to these young whippersnappers. I have been harsh in my critical analysis of this show, critiquing these young performers as seriously as I would critique any of the more experienced comedians I regularly review. This is as a mark of respect to these fine young comedians.