Back at the Festival for the second time, local sketch troupe The Consumption are back at The Dog Theatre with their latest show Terror-Hawk. As in their last show, they presented a collection of sketches with an often surrealist bent that explored various situations while adding disturbing elements just below the surface.
The Consumption appeared to be aiming for a darker version of the D Generation, especially in the manner in which they played around with theatrical forms in the same way that the D Gen did with television. There were plenty of self referencing, a false ending, general silliness and the elaborate costuming and staging for the sake of a single joke.
Several blocks of video sketches allowed the team to make use of an extended cast of friends, notable for the fact that female characters didn’t appear on stage. Slick video editing gave these segments a highly professional gleam and outdoor settings allowed for more comedic possibilities than the confines of the theatre.
The sketches themselves were a mixed bag in terms of quality. Some were quite long which combined with their penchant for punchline free endings may have left the audience a little underwhelmed at the lack of a payoff. Recurring characters were cleverly used, especially when multiple call backs were thrown together into the one sketch, but the repetition of the same joke rather than adding a twist was disappointing. A couple of times the staging and performance was funnier than the script which, while not necessarily a bad thing, may have disappointed those expecting something more substantial. More than a few sketches employed the ‘Has this ever happened to you?’ voiceover tag which often could have been cut without lessening the humour. The most frustrating was the three part live sketch about pirates that despite its silly costuming and over acting was an over long vehicle for some meta references and little else.
Audio monologues help to eliminate all the dead spots in the performance, a humourous way of filling time while the stage was rearranged. One drawback was that the audience took the end of the previous sketch as a cue for applause, missing most of the audio.
Despite the shortcomings this show contained plenty of hilarious laugh out loud moments. The collection of memorable and eccentric characters that the cast portrayed were brilliant. The five guys worked the stage like a well oiled machine, each playing over the top starring roles as well as the subdued supporting ones when required.
Although the script was rough around the edges, Terror-Hawk was a fun sketch show with enough laughs to warrant your patronage.
For booking details visit the Comedy Festival website