On Thursday and Friday nights of this year’s Melbourne Fringe Festival Anthony Menchetti has organised a comedy night with the gay community in mind. Not that it means you have to be gay to go, I certainly had a great time, but you may wish to know that it is in a pub that usually caters to lesbians and the performers are mostly gay or gay friendly. The pub in question, The Glasshouse Hotel, is in a very industrial part of Collingwood and I must say I felt a bit nervous walking there in the dark from Smith St but once inside it was buzzing with life. There are two fringe venue rooms in the pub and unfortunately there is no signage (I didn’t even see any posters or flyers for the Fringe shows that were on) and not much communication about where to go. I missed the first few minutes of this because I was waiting for someone to come out and tell me that the show was going to start. It is possible that I missed the call, I didn’t know there was a 2nd performance space and had felt reassured by all the noisy patrons waiting in the bar who were actually waiting for the other show. There was also the problem of the lack of signage causing audience members to sit down for the show, realise that they have gone into the wrong room and slink out again. There was also a lot of distracting noise bleeding into the shows there by the other show and by the crowd in the bar.
Anyway, aside from all my quibbles with the venue, Anthony Manchetti put together a stunning line up. Hosting the show was the inimitable Hannah Gadsby who gave us a taste of her comedy festival show, fresh back from Edinburgh Fringe, The Cliff Young Shuffle showing how you can make an audience laugh about depression and also got some great laughs out of the comings and goings of confused audience members. She did a lovely job of opening the evening, although it was a bit of a struggle with fairly small and reserved weekday audience.
The Fabulous Adam Richard came out to tell us some outrageous and funny stuff about Glee, Junior Masterchef and The X Factor. Not only did he have a quiet audience to work with, but I don’t think any of us had seen the TV shows in question. Well that didn’t really matter because he was able to make us laugh anyway. I loved the Simpson’s reference that X Factor is just Idol with a new hat. I’m just secretly waiting for the day that he finally comes out of the closet and does geek material about his real passion, SciFi shows like Dr. Who and V. Maybe that’s just me though; his Fox FM fans might be a bit mystified.
Geraldine Quinn was up next teaching us some scary dance moves and illustrating why leggings should never be worn as trousers (if at all). I have seen her do this routine a couple of times but it was the first time that I actually heard the dense and clever lyrics to her song ‘Camel Toe’ and they were worth hearing. Hooray for a small quiet room and a clear sound system. It also occurred to me that she might want to invest in a head microphone ala Madonna for her dance routine. The other token straight performer, the up and coming Mel Buttle did some nice material about the venue and then told us about her dad and battles (quite literally of the rap variety) with her students while teaching.
Anthony Menchetti fittingly closed the comic cavalcade with some stories about Europe and some of his cute comedy songs including a new one that asks is she a gay man or is he a lesbian? He received some much deserved applause for not only his own set but also for bringing together such a great lineup. Each night will be a bit different, including hosts for Friday’s show ‘Talking Poofy’ who were Adam Richard, Scott Brennan and Toby Sullivan.
Visit the Fringe website for booking details.