Celia Pacquola is awesome. She has followed up her widely celebrated show of 2009, Am I Strange, with another real corker.
Flying Solos is all about going it alone, daring to stand out from the pack and the cavalcade of consequences that can result from that, from sweet inspiration to acute humiliation. This is where Celia really shines. She takes real life stuff, with real life emotions and eloquently ties it up into a cohesive performance, easily straddling the gap between hilarity and pathos.
Hers is a banter which flows from acute observation to delicate surrealism. She will introduce us to a quirky notion with a cheeky shrug of the shoulder and then bring a flood of laughter with a revelation couched in relentless honesty, delivered at her own expense. What appears to be an unconnected string of stand up topics at first, moulds itself into a beautifully enclosed whole, with call backs and themes revealing themselves and informing the show as a complete piece. Celia also has a confident and comfortable stage presence which adds to the accomplishment of this show.
Celia uses both video sequences and backing music to a great effect in this show. Whilst not as low tech as her felt board of last year, these visual aids are certainly not high tech. Home video and clammy organ based backing music abound, and beautifully illustrate and enhance her tale rather than acting as filler, which these devises so often can in some shows.
Celia is real girl-crush material for me. Not because she pretty (which she is), but because she is seriously intelligent, deliciously funny and working in a genre in which she is clearly a huge talent. At one point during the show Celia touches on songs which have a name in them, and how the song can then affect how you view a person with that same name. With that in mind, Celia, you’re breakin’ my heart.
For full booking details go to the Melbourne Comedy Festival website