In it’s blurb in the festival program Voulez-vous Laugh avec moi? conjured images of a wacky surreal performer but the reality was not quite that extreme. Berty Cadilhac had a stage persona that of a rather straight laced guy whose only real difference from everyone else on the Melbourne comedy scene was his rather thick French accent. He wasn’t playing a French character, he actually was French. This gave him the advantage of both endearing him instantly to the audience as well as providing an outsider element upon which to hang his material. His inclusion of some other foreign accents were given an extra element of humour by it’s layering effect.
He did indeed mention all of the bizarre topics described in the advertising but they weren’t strange for strangeness sake, each were given clear context in his humourous stories describing his wacky theories on how the world operates. Add to this plenty of jokes based upon misinterpretation and cultural differences, and you had a wonderful hour of stand up. Berty managed to include some jokes on current events that some may have felt was a little too soon to make fun of, but through some cultural separation he was able to make it work a treat.
Even with a number of French punters in the audience Berty didn’t venture too much into bilingual jokes, only using a few lines of his native tongue to elicit some chuckles. Not being fluent in French, I can’t say whether I missed anything too important. His act was clearly aimed at Australian people by playing up on French stereotypes and his inclusion of stories about navigating the minefield of Australian culture. His approach was always playful and gently self deprecating which fit perfectly.
Berty was clearly a student of comedy. Despite only performing stand up for a year or two, this show was polished, carefully paced and used almost every comic device in the book. There were well structured running jokes and call backs, a little bit of prop work and he even employed Chekhov’s Gun.
Voulez-vous Laugh avec moi? was a brilliant debut festival show and is definitely one to catch.
Visit the St Kilda Laughs website for booking details.