FAULTY TOWERS THE DINING EXPERIENCE A
lison Pollard-Mansergh is the co-founder and artistic director of Interactive Theatre International, producers of Faulty Towers The Dining Experience, where audiences get a three-course meal served by actors portraying the cast of the classic British comedy Fawlty Towers, complete with mishaps and disaster. Pollard-Mansergh plays Sybil, the wife of hotelier Basil (played by John Cleese in the television show), though she’s not the only one. Since its inception in 1997 in Brisbane, The Dining Experience has been such a success that the the show now has four teams of cast and tours the world non-stop. At the time of interview, Pollard-Mansergh was on tour in the Netherlands, and while it’s her job to give the audience as haphazard a dinner experience as has ever been seen on television screens, she’s witnessed more than enough horrid hospitality in her time off too. “Touring eight to nine months internationally each year means I experience the service of many hotels,’ she says. “There was the breakfast nazi – our name for her – in Ireland; the laundry incident in Holland:
‘You left a bag of laundry here, did you want it washed?’; and the letter printing incident in London: ‘You want me to print an email for you? That’ll be £10 please...’. But probably the most memorable was the radiator incident – Reception: ‘Your radiator isn’t working? Oh, I can’t help you at the moment sorry, I’m just having a coffee. You could try hitting it with your shoe...’”
So, why Letters And Numbers? “Because it’s shockingly entertaining when played by nerds on SBS already,” offers Caddeye. “Who wouldn’t want to see that live, and with added drunkeness? It’s the geeky good times of regular Letters And Numbers featuring your favourite comics and fuelled by late nights, fatigue, booze, and the rampant competitive spirit of the festival.”
Though travel horror stories are a mere bi-product, the comedic fodder in these shows comes straight from the source, the cast putting in careful study of the 1970s series, and drawing on some impeccable improv skills to boot.
The show takes a few pointers from the SBS version, which involves a letters game – in which each contestant takes it in turn to select nine letters, including at least three vowels and four consonants, before trying to make the longest word they can using the selected letters in 30 seconds – and a numbers game – in which a contestant chooses a mix of six numbers which they can then use once each (with addition, subtraction, multiplication, division etc) to try to get as close to the randomly generated target number as they can in 30 seconds.
“Our goal is to have people feel as though they are actually on the set of the TV series restaurant. Foodies shouldn’t expect Michelin star style food… remember, it is based on a hotel in the 1970s, and the Fawlty Towers Hotel restaurant at that! Service is another matter. If you know the characters of Basil, Sybil, and Manuel, you will know that the service is not five-star either, even though Basil would ideally like it to be! The miscommunications, frustrations, bickering, and cost-cutting actions of the trio end up in a chaotic, downward spiral. “We have studied the two series fully, and though we don’t recreate exact scenes, we introduce themes that are familiar to fans throughout,” says Pollard-Mansergh. “For example, Basil tries to sneakily place a bet on a horse – not Dragonfly – without Sybil knowing…with the inevitable outcome! Favourite phrases and nods to story lines are all woven [in] throughout the two-hour Dining Experience. Having said that, only about a third of the show is scripted.” DAVE DRAYTON WHAT: Faulty Towers The Dining Experience WHEN & WHERE: Wednesday 28 March to Sunday 22 April (excludes Monday), The Aegean Restaurant Having left Australia to settle in England 12 years ago, Kendall has some good experience when it comes to finding her way around different cultures. She’s managed to build a career as a comedian in London, which she thinks is a great place for working funny people. “The comedy scene in England is fantastic, and it really is one of the best places in the world to work in stand-up comedy because there are so many live venues,” says Kendall. “I think in London alone there are over 100 comedy venues. It’s a great way to ply your craft – you get a hell of a lot of practice at it.” That said, working in the UK isn’t all giggles – sometimes literally, given Kendall’s line of work. “I don’t want to make too many gross generalisations, but I find that in London the audiences can be a bit tougher,” she says thoughtfully. “You really do sometimes get a room full of people where they’ve clearly got the shits.”
SARAH KENDALL S
arah Kendall is enjoying being back in Australia. She’s just getting started on the East Coast festival circuits for 2012 and things are off to a good start. “The audience last night was fantastic,” she says enthusiastically. “I do love coming back and I do want to work more in Australia. It’s been eight years since I’ve done a festival here.” Kendall is gearing up to perform her new show Persona at MICF, and she’s hoping audiences will be interested in what she has to say. “I became a mum about two years ago, and the show is, at first, sort of about that,” she explains. “But it’s a much broader thing about raising a daughter and the kind of culture I’m raising a daughter in. There’s not a huge amount in there about being a parent, but there’s a lot in there about the way you interpret the world when you’re raising [a child].”
London audiences aren’t the worst, though: it’s the famed scousers of Liverpool who have the worst reputation amongst the UK comics. “Liverpool is well known for being a tough gig, mainly because scousers, generally speaking, think they’re very funny,” she explains. “When you play a gig in Liverpool, there are going to be quite a few hecklers in the audience who fancy that they are much funnier than you.” It’s little surprise, then, that Kendall is looking forward to performing for the Australians and their sunnier dispositions. “Here, we’re already a relatively happy population.” The chance to laugh out loud at a good night of comedy only seems to heighten that.
JIMMY JAMES EATON J
immy James Eaton gets called a lot of names. In the resemblance stakes, he has been compared to musician Moby and Neighbours’ Toadfish. They are the good ones. “Gary Ablett Jr. and Sinéad O’Connorwith-a-beard are some of the others. It’s a common disease with bald people, as you always get compared to other bald people,” he says. (And yet he hasn’t been compared to Seinfeld’s George Costanza.) Born in Perth but based in Melbourne, Eaton’s comedic repertoire normally consists of impersonations (of anything and everything), skits, musical interludes, and funny observations. He’s toured overseas, presented and appeared on ABC and Channel V, has opened for Greg Fleet, Reginald D Hunter, and Wil Anderson, and collaborated with Tim Minchin, Jimeoin, and Claire Hooper. He’s recognised as a specialist tutor in improvisation and is known to deviate from subject, veering off into equally funny territory. He is also, as we mentioned, bald. “If people are not into spacemen then I do not want them at my show,” he jests. This is in reference to his latest conception, One Small Sketch For Man.
I
f RocKwiz has proved anything – beyond obscure musical facts – it’s that televised game shows are always better filmed in boozy surrounds, with an audience that has access to tipple. By that logic then, could any game show be made infinitely better with less sobriety? Deal Or No Deal? Sale Of The Century? Not exactly, says Nick Caddaye, host of Late Night Letters And Numbers, a scriptless, raucous version of the SBS quiz show of the (almost) same name. “It wouldn’t work with Deal Or No Deal, as that’s a game of pure statistics and luck. Sale Of The Century would definitely work, as people love quiz shows. So much so, that they’ll even watch them when hosted by Eddie McGuire,” Caddaye jokes.
But it’s not just any old sketch show! Eaton has set himself one hell of challenge as he churns through 15 different characters whilst on-stage. “It’s some kind of insanity to do this,” he reveals. At least he is honest. “It’s a narrative show full of suspense, love, astronauts, beat-boxing and all sorts of stuff. The characters interact with each other and tell a whole story.” Although he is performing all 15 characters, there are no costume changes. It is just him, the stage, and you – the audience. “I never get lonely and the rehearsal room is a great place to be.” The idea for One Small Sketch For Man came from Eaton’s love of stand-up and improvised comedy. “I got into stand-up and improvised comedy a long time ago and went back through previous shows and found some interesting things and characters I liked.” But are the characters based on fact or fiction? “There is some truth in everything,” he says. STUART EVANS
WHO: Sarah Kendall
WHO: Jimmy James Eaton
WHAT: Persona
WHAT: One Small Sketch For Man
WHEN & WHERE: Thursday 29 March to Sunday 22 April (excludes Monday), Victoria Hotel – Vic’s Bar
WHEN & WHERE: Thursday 29 March to Saturday 21 April (Tuesday to Saturday), Three Degrees
“The structure is derived from the show,” says Caddaye, “but we put comedians in the hot seat, not talented amateurs. And when confronted with their own inadequacies, comedians usually throw up their defences. And if I know comedians, that means jokes.” Born from the frustration that yelling at an unresponsive TV during a quiz show causes, the Caddaye-hosted version gives audiences a chance to be heard – and perhaps even mocked – during gameplay. “In our show if you get a heckler, you ask them to solve the puzzle. If they fail, you mock them for their stupidity. If they succeed, you mock them for their virginity,” says Caddaye, before shedding some light on the first time he remembers getting angry at letters and numbers: “WW2”. DAVE DRAYTON WHAT: Late Night Letters And Numbers WHEN & WHERE: Thursday 29 March to Thursday 19 April (Thursdays only), The John Curtin Hotel Grey’s festival show Age-Less has the curious and wholly unique quality of being designed for kids. But that it also works for adults, he explains, is where it gets clever. “How I like to define it,” Grey starts, “is [it’s] like a Simpsons-esque kind of humour, where the kids laugh at the jokes, but the parents get the jokes.”
Eaton is a frenzied funny-man, full of energy and enthusiasm. His latest show demonstrates his diversity despite a dodgy background of how the show came into being. “I lost a bet to some Jamaican pirates who stole my microwave,” he says. “The bet was for me to do a live sketch show. I could have just bought another microwave but I liked the idea of a sketch show.”
ALEKSIA BARRON
32 • THE INPRESS GUIDE TO THE 2012 MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL COMEDY FESTIVAL
LATE NIGHT LETTERS AND NUMBERS
So just how does he do it? “To be honest,” Grey continues, “it’s in the delivery. I’m like no adult they’ve ever seen before. I’m not kid-y, or happygo-lucky, but at the same time, I’m not deadly serious, telling them ‘no’ all the time. I’m wild, immensely energetic, and slightly aggressive, and I talk to them the way that I would want to be spoken to; like an adult. But, I [also] do it… best way to describe it? I do it fun.
MATTY GREY A
children’s entertainer by day, and by night, a children’s entertainer, comedian Matty Grey has a sweet, but singular vision. “You ever heard of arrested development?” Grey asks, sadly not talking about the antics of the famous Bluth family. “Arrested development is when you have such a trauma in your life that you don’t tend to go past it in your maturity,” he continues, surprisingly solemn. “I had such a dreadful time at school that in a lot of ways, my development was arrested at that point. So I’ve never actually, truly grown up – I mean, I’m a grown-up now, I pay my bills – but emotionally, I’m still 15 years old.” Grey doesn’t intend for this admission to come across as pitiful, though. In fact, his strong, factual tone asserts that he wears it rather proudly. It’s no sad rationale for what he does; it’s instead his motivation.
“The underlying theme [of Age-Less],” he continues, “it has two [meanings]. It’s called Age-Less, and it means to become ageless, and don’t go growing up too much; stay young, have fun, buy toys, you don’t have to grow up and become ‘old’. And the second theme is for the adults: ‘age a little less’. Keep a bit of youth in you, have a little fun, remember what it was like to be a kid.” But why doesn’t Grey preach that message to adults direct? “I always wanted to be wild and out there with my stand-up comedy, and it doesn’t always quite work for [an] adult audience. When you’ve got kids in the audience, and you’re just that little bit out there – a little silly and crazy – the adults will come along with you; they’ll come along with their kids.” SAM HOBSON WHO: Matty Grey WHAT: Age-Less WHEN & WHERE: Saturday 31 March to Sunday 15 April (excludes Monday), Northcote Town Hall