Cath Styles presents Girls Night does what it says on the label. This is a showcase of female comedians from Melbourne and Sydney which is MC’d by Cath. The line up changes night to night, with three of about twenty different comedians appearing alongside Cath on any given night. I rocked up on Grand Final Night number 1, and on the bill were Halley Metcalfe, Kate McLennan and Linda Beatty. Although the first couple of nights of this show pulled a reasonable crowd, it should be mentioned that (as is usual for a Grand Final Night) the crowd was “intimate” on this occasion, with only four punters turning up. I bring this up only because it can be far more difficult for comedians to deal with tiny audiences, and as such consideration should be extended.
Cath kicked off proceedings in a genial manner. Whilst inoffensive, Cath was little more than amusing, largely eliciting smiles rather than laughs. Her material covered often traversed topics such as relationships, Facebook, teenagers, and she covered them in a fairly predictable way, often rambling a little too long. I feel that her style was somewhat confused. She doesn’t yet seem to own her voice but speaks in an amalgam of others’ voices. A bit more brevity and material driven by personal experience would add greatly to Cath’s performance.
Halley’s performance was a standout. She reminded me of a young Judith Lucy in the way she armed herself with perfect confidence and brazenly tackled some highly personal and exquisitely embarrassing material. Her stage presence was commanding and her recollections acutely observed. Her self deprecation came with a full dose of delighted gusto which was matched by the small audience’s response. This was the best I’ve ever seen Halley.
Kate’s material was, likewise, generated from personal experience. Her natural command of performance seems to shine through in any context she throws herself into. Remarkably, I believe this is the first time I’ve seen Kate do straight stand up in the six years that I’ve been reviewing. Her material ranged from the delicately peculiar to the easily recognisable, but was always dealt with in a brightly original manner. As is always the case with Kate, her acute ability to summon characterisation was faultless, injecting perfect authenticity into her performance.
Hitting the stage in a white princess dress and carrying a harp, Linda assumed the guise of a slightly naïve and mostly insane songstress. Whilst armed with a beautiful voice and the added delight of the harp, I felt that her characterisation was more about affectation than authentic realisation of character. Unfortunately this resulted in a rather two dimensional creation and as such it felt unauthentic. That said there were some very funny, sparkling moments of unexpected, twisted nonsense.
As I mentioned the line up of this show changes every night and with acts like Geraldine Quinn, Andrea Powell, Karin Muiznieks and Geraldine Hickey in the line up it’s well worth taking a look.
For booking details go to Cath Styles presents Girls Night