Posts tagged Ingrid Grenar

Ben Hurley presented a night of new talent from New Zealand last night at the Loft at Q Theatre.

Unfortunately the room was not full but those of us that were there were up for a laugh, and for supporting up and coming comedy.

Ben Hurley is a seasoned performer so he is at ease both on the stage, and with chatting to the audience, which included a chat with with me! After a short warm up he introduced the first new act of the night.

There were four comedians on, the first of which was Sanjay Patel whose dead pan delivery had everyone giggling. Unfortunately as a newbie to NZ I missed some of the pop culture references but I enjoyed his on stage persona and slightly surreal subject matter. Sanjay has a show at the festival called At Last The 2011 Show on until 5 May at Brooklyn Bar.

Next up was the youngest comedian I think I have ever seen, just turned 18 Lewis Dean was confident and had some good material and stage demeanour. I am sure he will go from stretch to strength and get over the stigma of being a comedian who likes Hamilton. 

Following Lewis was Pax, a naturally comedic  person who used his body movements and physicalities in his act to make us laugh which included some tips on how to get out of a fight by looking a bit ‘rapey’.

Finally Guy Williams, our last comedian, was on stage. He worked his slightly geeky image well and was my favourite of the night. I found him to be clever and original mixing excellently delivered jokes with more random visual ones.

He is confident on stage and of his material, which came effortlessly from his lacklustre attempt at audience interaction, comments on moving to Auckland and understanding the global financial crises through the extortionate price of cheese. I definitely wanted to see more from him.

Luckily for me, and everyone else, Guy also has his own show at the festival called On the Verge of Nothing 14 - 19 May at The Classic.

Ben Hurley will be presenting another New Faces on Sat 5 May and will also be performing in a show with 7 Days co-star Steve Wrigley - Live & Unleashed 15 - 19 May at Q Theatre.

This show was part of the NZ International Comedy Festival.

Where do I even start talking about last night’s Jason Byrne stand up show People’s Puppeteer at the Q Theatre in Auckland .

It was a chaotic, rampant laughter fest which fell in to disarray and resulted in pure comedic genius and aching sides.

Entering the stage as a huge puppeteer Jason Byrne proceeded to  Irish dance across the stage as the merry crowd wooped, cheered and clapped almost all the way through!

I don’t think I have ever been to a comedy show when I wasn’t sure what just happened, almost an hour and a half passed where I laughed from start to finish at various absurdities, the likes of which New Zealand was seeing for the first time.

The aptly titled show People’s Pupperteer saw the Irish comedian man handle some of his fellow Irishman and use three audience members as a human xylophone ( I won’t tell you where his struck his batons!).

He interacted and joked with his audience who became part of the show both on and off the stage. What Jason found particularly peculiar during this inaugural New Zealand performance was to be  asked to share his drink with a thirsty audience member for the first time in his performing career.

He was grunted and moaned at by various nationalities and appeared truly mystified  at the apparent inability of an Irishman to communicate with Kiwi after various miscommunication and what he called the ‘unnecessary’ noises that came out the people’s mouths.

The breaking point at which he may of thought we were all playing a joke on him was the when a man shouts out ‘Umbrella’ believing it to be slang for condoms.

Through all this he does manage to also tell some hilarious and raw anecdotes covering such personal topics as an ‘itchy bum’ and having sex while wearing an eye patch. He  jumps and leaps about the stage often laughing and giggling at his own crazy creations.

He is an infectious force with provocative material and an innate ability to puppeteer his audience like no comedian I have ever seen.

Jason Byrne is performing as part of the NZ International Comedy Festival at the Q Theatre until 5 May.

BOOKINGS: 093099772

As a last minute addition to my itinerary last night I popped in to The Classic to see Craig Campbell, a Canadian comedian who I had not seen before but whose poster won me over.

It was a quiet Monday crowd and one that I am not entirely sure fully appreciated the  genius story telling capabilities of Craig Campbell.

I found him totally engaging, clever, sometimes quite unexpectedly shouty, but overall very funny. He had a great ability to sound improvised and to interact with, and include his audience. Having not seen him before I am not sure how much of the show was improvised but it certainly had that feel. It strikes me that he will adapt and meander around the interaction and commentary he gets from his audience.

He is a Canadian and proud but has many stories from around the world with humorous observations from his experiences in the Netherlands, UK, Norway as well as his homeland.

He is exactly the kind of stand –up I love and could listen to him for hours. He has similarities to his countryman Tony Law, as they both tell long tales with huge expressive movements and tone to get you to giggle.

Craig is able to delve in to his own life and travel experiences and link them together to form an hour of hilarious and varied antidotes including character voices as well as social commentary. It is the breed of comedy I admire so much and it’s no surprise he has been compared to Billy Connolly.

I believe his show will evolve during the week and no night will be the same, he is definitely one of my picks and I am so glad his poster caught my eye.

Craig Campbell is performing at The Classic, Auckland until the 12 May, part of the NZ International Comedy Festival.

Bookings: 0800 TICKETEK (842 538)