★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Josh Glanc, Oliver Coleman and Blake Everett. Arthur Artbar @ West Village. 10 Mar 2022
If you stamped and clapped at the late-night weekend show Stamptown Comedy Night in fringes past, you will want to see its love child.
Alas pizzazzy MC Zuck Zacher is replaced by Stamptown regular Spanish Fuk-Boi (aka Melbourne’s favourite comic Josh Glanc). Hairy-crazy Fuk-Boi shows off his Spanish midriff with a fringed too-short T-shirt decorated with a cactus and a caravan, and chugs occasionally from a 2-litre jug of milk. Josh is an expert at extracting laughter from his ironic/innocent interpretation of the everyday. The show title and format remind one of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, the 1962-92 Californian late night talk/variety show which all subsequent others try to be as good as. Carson’s couch potato colour commentator Ed McMahon is replaced by unseen comedian Oliver Coleman’s Mr Coo Coo Pigeon. Mr Coo Coo is a taxidermist’s delight and later gets a free lap dance because he’s lap-free. Dr Pancakes the Clown (aka Blake Everett) stands in for Carson’s band leader Doc Severinsen and turns the screws on the laughter (machine) and sound effects whilst in deadpan silence. These are the three amigos, and the guest stream will differ night on night, but this is what I saw.
Poor Dane Simpson left his didge on the set of his show, Didgeridoozy, and floundered a bit without it. His disarming smile and good nature were just enough to enchant the rambunctious audience. You might expect MC Boomer (aka Fringe regular Eric Tinker aka Derek Tickner) to be a ridgy-didge rapper but there is a play on words here. A careful listen would make any Millennial’s skin crawl. They laugh along until the penny drops that the joke is on them. Dazza and Keif are the purple cowboy angels physical comedy duo with androgenous ambiguity. Besides Mr Coo Coo, a lucky male audience member got the same treatment any man would get in a Texas roadhouse bar. To see more of them - and who wouldn’t want that - book Dazza and Keif Reenact the Titanic Movie Playing All The Roles. The title says it all. The show was finished off with Kevin Quantum’s mind-blowing beyond-belief card tricks. You can see this joker in Kevin Quantum: Dark Matter. A big finish to a very chaotic first night of laughs and spontaneity.
Also still on are Brett Blake & Lewis Garnham – Wreak Havoc and Oliver Coleman – Sublime, or see them together in Blake Everett and Oliver Coleman: Dig Their Own Graves.
David Grybowski
When: 10 to 13 March
Where: Arthur Artbar @ West Village
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
