Andrew McClelland is one of the bright stalwarts of the Melbourne Comedy scene, and represents all that is wonderful about it, Intelligent, charismatic, eccentric, sweet, quick witted, daggy, always a crowd pleaser and soooo NICE! Andrew has a lot of experience entertaining audiences and you need not worry that his show about the Fall of the Roman Empire is going to be some dry history lecture, Andy has no trouble mining the ancient world for comedy gold and pulls out all the stops to give us an uproariously fun time.
Apart from his wild, contagious, puppy dog enthusiasm, Andrew has employed quite a lot of audience participation in this show because he’s so keen for you to join him in loving Roman history as much as he does. The audience is given roles to play, the front row Roman soldiers, the barbarians in the middle and the Christians up the back. Two special members got to play lead piping and horse shoes. Everyone had lines, well, things to shout out occasionally; with the Barbarians roaring ‘Bar Bar’ and the Christians having to praise Jesus (which I’m sure was a secret little pleasure for Roman Catholic Andrew!). Andrew also elicits volunteers to play various acting roles throughout, such as the historically correct death scene of Julius Caesar, and a not quite dead Tiberious. I encourage you to join in with all the fun, no need to be afraid, being frightened of Andy would be like being frightened of a big cuddly teddy bear. I just hope he has a back up plan in case he gets a timid, silent, midweek audience sometime.
Pay attention to the title, though it is a show about Rome, after giving a brief overview, Andy is mostly concerned with the empire’s fall, and theories about why it fell. Also he is smart enough to preface his shows with ‘somewhat accurate’ for all you history Nazis out there. But having studied a bit of Roman history over the years – well I’ve watched the odd documentary – I was amazed at his breadth of knowledge. He has a segment called Name that Emperor and Andy will give you some fun facts on any emperor you can name. He also debunks a lot of myths about the Romans; do you really know what a ‘vomitorium’ was?
Andy is your favourite professor, teaching through fun and laughter, so that you don’t even realise you’re learning stuff. I enjoyed this show immensely and although it is having a sadly short run at the Fringe, you should be able to check it out at the Melbourne Comedy Festival next year; I also imagine it would be a perfect show to take to Edinburgh. Though why put off having such a wonderful time? Get off your couches and leave the History Channel to it’s obsession with Hitler and immerse yourself in this scrumptious show.
For more info and booking details go to the Melbourne Fringe Festival website