Last year Michael William’s Debut show was called ‘Nice & Easel’ and it introduced his quirky, relaxed, daggy, home made style of comedy, illustrated with hand drawn pictures. Michael now has a custom built, sturdy Easel to hold his pictures, if only he had a slightly less cramped stage to work on. Though the room is slightly bigger than last year, the stage is smaller and he needs quite a bit of room, but he manages it all with customary aplomb. You might ask him, wouldn’t it be easier if you just use Power Point? But you would be missing his point and some great little stick puppets that fly in on occasion.
This year as well has having funny jokes and tales to tell, Michael uses his delightful drawings and humour to tell a cracking story of an attempted revolution. The story is prefaced by a trailer which was basically a parody of Twilight and an intro about Michael’s journey from Warrnambool, to life in Melbourne as a comedian and a fairly tenuous link to how his life is related to John Wilkes Booth, the crazy actor who killed American President Abraham Lincoln. Apparently he was not alone and organised a group of eccentric nutbag assassins to kill several other top politicians on the same night and it was Good Friday which was the first of many errors of judgment. There were many laughs to be found in the bizarre personalities of just about every real life character involved in the story, including the good guys! Michael also pops in a running gag spoofing the famous Civil War TV miniseries using a series of letters.
As well as the main story, Michael occasionally took some sidesteps off into other non American History silliness, including a mention of being detained and deported in the UK (did I smell the primordial ooze of a potential new show?) and my favorite routine about the little Miss and Mr characters. There are a few mentions of children’s books, I’m guessing that Michael is very influenced by children’s books and I think he’d be great at doing a children’s show too. In fact you could probably bring older kids to this one, the pictures really bring the stories and jokes to life and despite a bit of historically true violence (including a bizarre castration), I don’t remember any seriously offensive material. I should warn you by the way that The Forum is a licenced venue so if you are under 18 you must be accompanied by an adult guardian.
Go and see his show, bring your friends and family, you might not be on the floor in fits, though I had some huge laughs, but you will all have an enjoyable, entertaining and even educational experience. Your patronage might also help him to move to a bigger room so he can work more comfortably next year.
For booking details visit the Comedy Festival Michael Williams