MICF: Bucket's List THIS HAPPENED

Bucket's List
to 5 April
comedyfestival.com.au

In 2010 Justin Kennedy and Sarah Collins got engaged on stage during run of their MICF show Donna and Damo.

They went on to make Bucket's List that premiered at the last year's Melbourne Fringe.

I loved it and saw it twice.

It's since been to New Zealand and is enjoying a return season at the Northcote Town Hall for MICF until Sunday.

But there's someone who hasn't seen it.

Sarah Collins was inspired to write Bucket's List when she met this guy when she was the photographer at a wedding (Love Katie + Sarah). Although new to the work, he wasn't the usual 20ish wedding DJ and his day job was a bucket salesman. He said that being a DJ was his dream job and when his wife saw an add for wedding DJs on Seek, she said that he should apply. He did.

All Sarah had was this photo that she took at the wedding and she's been trying to find him.

This happened on Tuesday night.

(Sorry you have to click to Facebook, but Facebook isn't playing nice with embed code and Sarah's internet isn't letting it upload to YouTube and technology is failing us.)


PS: in the background is the other wonder that Sarah and Justin's made last year and she's clearly trying to steal the attention.

FRINGE part 6

Bucket's List

20 September 2014

Fringe Hub, Rehearsal Room

to 4 October

melbournefringe.com.au

With wedding song two-steps, a surly possum, dried apricots & words that sound like bucket, don't even think about missing this. Bucket's List is Sarah Collins fourth major work and the first one that she hasn't written for herself.

She wrote it for comedian Justin Kennedy, who is a writer for The Project, co-wrote and performed the very successful Donna and Damo with her, and proposed to Collins on stage during the 2010 Melbourne Comedy Festival season of D & D.

Bucket loved his work at the bucket factory for 19 years and 364 days and was happy to stay for the next 20 years, but bucket peak has been reached. He finds a new job as a wedding DJ, realises  that he's never had his own wedding dance and, with the help of his neighbours and a sexed-up and cynical possum, he goes looking for love.

It's a sweet and loving story that has its dark and weird moments but doesn't descend into the same unexpected bleakness that Choir Girl did, and, while she lets hero Bucket be the hero he needs to be, the foreshadowed ending isn't a surprise.

Kennedy's adorable performance makes it easy to love Bucket and maybe want him as a sweet and odd friend, but he barely utters a word. The performance is all physical (like Mr Bean, but nothing like the Mr Bean character) while recorded narrator, Felix Nobis, tells the story, with Rhys Auteri providing a live guitar score and doubling as the possum who finds noisy love before Bucket finds his own hope of a girlfriend.

Director by Yvonne Virsik (who directed Collins's first work Nothing Extraordinary Ever Happens in Toowoomba (Ever)) ensures that there's guts and humanity in the more twee moments, and Jason Lehane (who directed D & D) created a bucket puppet who may be remembered as the woman who made too many people cry this Fringe.

Collins writing continues to stand out as work that could only be hers. Hers is writing that shows that if you trust your voice and don't try to sound like anyone else, you'll find the people who love your work.

PS.  It started as when Sarah met a wedding DJ who used to be a bucket salesperson.

Richard 11
MKA
25 September 2014
Northcote Town Hall, Studio 2
to 28 September
melbournefringe.com.au

Mark Wilson and MKA made their unforgettable mark in last year's Fringe with UnSex Me, Wilson's penetrative riff on the Scottish play. This year, Wilson is joined by Olivia Monticciolo and they drag Richard 11 into the now to give the politics we seem to be accepting a good double dicking.

With Wilson as Richard and Monticciolo as his cousin Henry, they start as children playing and become adults playing at being Kings of Australia. With slabs of Shakespeare's text and plenty of their own, the story is re-cast as the Rudd and Gillard leadership debacle with numbers meaning everything and a de-crowned King who isn't afraid to do everything he can to undermine the woman who disposed him.

Here's theatre that's about now and us and isn't afraid to question and scream about gender and power and how we accept too much that shouldn't be accepted.

It's political, funny, cruel, honest & what-the-fuck-have-we-done brilliant. And Mark wears gold tights.

It's also sold out.

Bonus: Terrific conversation with random audience members on School for Birds.

Who Are You Supposed to Be?
26 September 2014
The Owl and the Pussycat
to 5 October
melbournefringe.com.au

One of the loveliest parts of Who Are You Supposed to Be? was being in an audience who were squeeing with joy as they recognised themselves, their world and every geeky sci-fi reference. And there are many geeky sci-fi references.

I know that because I got most of them. And maybe squee'ed at 5 and 10 and the mourning of the passing of Firefly.

Keith Gow is a Doctor Who fan and wrote a play set at a convention where a con-famous podcaster (Rob Lloyd) meets someone he only knows from Twitter (Jennifer Lusk, who also played this part in the UK) and attacks her for daring to dress as the fifth Doctor.

With enough Doctor Who references to thrill even the most obsessed, it looks beyond the obvious nerd jokes to explore gender issues, sexism and the place of non-cannonical breasts in geek culture.

It is a work for Doctor Who fans and sci-fi obsessives. There's enough for non-fans to enjoy, but it's safe to assume that the people who go to a play about Doctor Who fans are going to get the Blink jokes.

Some of these are on AussieTheatre.com.

Comedy Fest cynicism be gone

A week into the comedy festival and we start trying to offend our most sacred beliefs and saying cunt far too often. I heard my first Hey Dad joke late on Saturday night and knew that there was no more fluffy bunny cuteness to be found this festival. Then this appeared on Facebook:

Justin just proposed to me on stage using the Donna and Damo overhead projector to ask "will you marry me?!" I said YESSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!

The Justins Hamilton and Heazelwood may be wondering why they are getting congratulated tomorrow (apart from having their own terrific shows), but it's Justin Kennedy who hijacked his own show's technology to propose to the wonderful Sarah Collins.

This is how good life can be when you create a brilliant show about asexuals.

Can anyone be more gorgeous?*

Here's The Age story.

*apart from a certain new baby who appeared just before the festival began

Review: Donna and Damo

MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL COMEDY FESTIVAL 2010
Donna and Damo
Full Tilt
25 March 2010
Blackbox, the Arts Centre

I adore Donna and Damo so much that it’s hard to write anything that doesn’t make me sound like a potential stalker.

Sarah Collins and Justin Kennedy’s utter gem first appeared at the 2009 Melbourne Fringe (I used words like irresistible and exquisite) and it didn’t take long for it to sell out (in the good way). The Arts Centre Full Tilt programmers knew that many more people deserve to see this adorable show, so put it in their Comedy Festival line up in the Black Box.

Neither Donna nor Damo quite fit into their world. Donna thinks she’s found happiness with Trevor, a film blogging critique who declares Zoolander his favourite film, rather than something really deep like The Butterfly Effect; Damo tries to fix people with no obligation spell checks and he isn’t looking for a girlfriend, boyfriend or icky lover to make his world right.

Their story is beautiful, but stories without heart are just words. Even the broadest comedy needs to grab our hearts and make us care. Donna and Damo is jaw-aching funny, but we’re never laughing at these misfit lovers. We see our own imperfections in them and long for them to find love and happiness, as much as we long for the same ourselves.

Director Jason Lehane ensures the balance of poignancy, comedy and gut-felt emotion, so that even the quirks of horrible boyfriend Trevor tweak enough self-recognition to make him as real as our best, or worst, friend.

The new season brings new characters and jokes and the bigger venue allows for a so-needed disco ball and for Damien Scott BPA’s live animation to almost steal the show. Scott’s work is the Avatar of live theatre (except there’s a story and characters who you believe and care about).

Knowing the story doesn’t harm a second viewing, and allows the chance to indulge in the Matt Dillon jokes, remember the grammar tips and covet the Johnny Depp blanky. (Also new is Justin appearing clad only in a red cowboy hat and very special blanket.)

Donna and Damo is the kind of theatre that I love and I dare any other Comedy Festival show to be this good.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

2009 review of  Donna and Damo.
 

  Damian Scott BPA

Donna and Damo

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2009
Donna and Damo
Sarah Collins and Justin Kennedy
30 September 2009
Fringe Hub, Lithuanian Club

Can true love flourish without a pash? Or even a bit of under-the-jumper action? Neither Donna nor Damo care for that stuff and, even though I’m now hopelessly in love with both of them, I can’t imagine more than perhaps going on a nice picnic together or sharing a pizza as we watch the Logis.

My favourite show from the 2008 Fringe was Sarah Collins’s extraordinarily beautiful Nothing Extraordinary Ever Happens in Toowoomba. (Ever). This year she has teamed up with Justin Kennedy to write and perform Donna and Damo, and it is just as gorgeous.

Donna is a telemarketer for a glamour photographer travelling through country Victoria, and she’s given up fudge so she can look great when she watches the 2006 Academy Award ceremony with her film blogging boyfriend, Trevor. Damo finds Donna’s work place because someone thought that ‘glamor’ is acceptable spelling, but says he’ll accept ‘photographfix’ if it’s a pun and only if photos are actually fixed. Damo understands the need to fix broken things.

Women whose downfall is chewy chocolaty goodness, blogging critics who take their own opinions too seriously and a freelance spell checker who is offended by any breach of the law of English language: I love this play.

Too close to home content aside, Donna and Damo is exquisite writing. The delightful originality of Collins’s voice (and Kennedy’s) is so lovely that there’s a small part of me seething with jealousy. This is writing that puts story first, refuses to let a bad plot moment exist and has created characters so original and complete that you’d swear you’d met them.

Swapping between direct narrative and their collection of characters, Collins and Kennedy are as irresistible as their creations. Kennedy just has to trust that they really are reaching the hearts of their audience and let his misfits dance.

Delicately directed by Jason Lehane, and with what has to be the best use of an overhead projector ever, Donna and Damo will leave your heart so warm that you won’t have to worry about another Melbourne cold snap.

More 2009 Fringe reviews.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.