In spite of the slightly crude title, Bollocks Without Borders was a pleasant stand up show combining the talents of three somewhat new names to the Melbourne comedy scene. Yiannis Koullas, Linda Beatty and Don Tran brought their varying styles of stand up to the stage.
The woman running the tech side of things also acted as the shows’ MC and did so with a little too much hand holding for my tastes. I’m sure those in the audience who rarely attend live comedy would have benefited from her constant requests for encouragement for the acts and checking on our comfort, but I would rather be warmed up with humour. The drumming up of applause prior to her introductions was also problematic. Our clapping often drowned out her intro and each performer had to descend a staircase to reach the stage, so it was difficult to maintain our energy for the long trek. At least the three acts could clearly shine over this exercise in housekeeping.
The first act proper was Yiannis who was billed as having a secret but it was no great surprise when he launched into a routine about being Greek and gay. With a bubbly and rather camp stage presense, Yiannis covered a number of standard jokes about coming out, talked about his parents and his background. Most intriguing was when he covered the differences between men and women; a topic that, given his orientation, had the promise of presenting a new angle, but for the most part it trod the same ground as straight comics. He seemed to falter slightly when some jokes fell flat, but he presented the material well and kept the crowd smiling.
Armed with a Celtic Harp, Linda Beatty was next to the stage. She began with a topic not often visited on the stand up stage, Opera, which covered her unfulfilled dreams in performing in it and its ridiculousness. Being trained in singing, Linda could belt out her operatic examples and showed the punters that she knew her stuff. When she moved to the harp, her actual songs weren’t particularly amusing in their lyrics but the majority of this section the harp was used as the backing track to her twisted, modernised fairytales routine. After some stand up about relationships Linda ended her set on a high with an amusingly filthy parody of a song associated with a Disney movie.
Don Tran was the final act of the show and he was a practitioner of the straight faced delivery of one and two liner jokes. There was precious little colour and movement from Dan as he reeled the jokes off, staring into the distance. Unlike others of this genre he resisted the temptation to plow from one joke to the next, instead inserting pauses for the crowds laughter to die down. While this allowed us to catch every word, it did slow the pace considerably. Also of interest was his inclusion of many rather dark and off colour lines which seemed to throw the audience a bit; they were probably expecting an entire set of frivolous one liners ala Elliot Goblet et al.
Bollocks Without Borders was a fun show that presented an interesting variety of comedy in the one package. As a bonus, each punter received a mock newpaper / leaflet that presented the fourth comedic style to the mix, that of printed social and political parody. It was great for those wishing to see some of stand ups rising stars.
Visit the Comedy Festival Website for booking details.