It is fitting that in the 30th
anniversary year of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival that the first
I see is Frank Woodley, an Australian comedy icon whose career started at the
very first festival.
30 years on his style of clowning is still
steeped in idiocy, word play and astonishing physicality. 30 years on he is
still hilariously, laugh out loud funny.
As a clown he does not wear a red nose but
he unashamedly loves a cheap costume something that creates the very lose
thread to this perfectly crafted ramshackle and deceptively random
performance. So much comedy from a
paper placemat!
The K-Mart and cricket stories are Woodley
at his best before he finishes with his version of Shakespeare.
Be warned however as great as Woodley is a
comedy he is equally poor at timekeeping. The 60 minute show lasted 90 minutes
- not that it ever felt long, it was 90 minutes of strong laughs - but might
become an issue for people planning on seeing more than one show on the same
evening.
Frank Woodley was a major disappointment. His first 20 minutes was so thin and rambling that it appeared as unprepared ad lib. he rambled and repeated himself searching for laughs. He yelled into the mike until he finally squeezed out nervous laughs. Jokes with conventional build ups and punchlines or clever use of words was lacking and it appeared that a small number of gags were stretched thinly over an hour hoping that spin offs and tangents may get him by. I was hoping for something that I would remember and chuckle about all the way home but maybe we caught Frank on one of his lesser nights?
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