MICF: Rock Out With Your Bok Out – Lauren Bok

MICF
Rock Out With Your Bok Out
Lauren Bok
Crowded
21 April 2019
Crowded in the Vaults
to 21 April
comedyfestival.com.au

Lauren Bok

On Sunday night, when performers and audiences are counting down the minutes until they can sleep, I took my own advice and saw #OneMoreShow. One more Gibbo-award-nominated  #kickarsefeminist show where the audience were singing along to Queen before the show even started: Rock Out With Your Bok Out.

Melbourne comedian and performer Lauren Bok's thought her new show would be tits and puns, but you need a bit more to get one of those award nominations. So she put a Led Zepplin t-shirt over her creation-myth-inspired sequin pasties and added some rock-star stories, her personal learning curve of the mastery of the rules and lingo of polyamory, and her nephew's potty training.

The connection between some of her stories doesn't always add to her bigger story, but who cares when there's mime to make a narrative connection. It's not good mime, but it's wonderfully hilarious and I'll be back next time if only just for the mime

How to Fringe 2017: Lauren Bok

Lauren Bok
Producer, performer

Lauren Bok: A Bok In Progress
13– 16 September
The Metropolitan Hotel

Lauren Bok. Photo by James Henry

If you could invite anyone to your show (and you knew they would come), who would it be?
My high school drama teacher. I could really use the feedback.

The Melbourne Fringe in three words.
Bold, Drunk, Sassy.

A favourite Melbourne Fringe memory.
I was watching a gorgeous outdoor circus performer hanging off a bit of fabric in a tree in Errol Street – and a passerby said, ‘Is that the fringe?’ Yes, in that moment, it was the whole Fringe.

Your experience as an independent artist being part of the Melbourne Fringe.
I can always rely on Melbourne Fringe to make me feel like taking a risk and knowing it will catch me if I fall.

What makes the Melbourne Fringe unique?
In the current festival landscape the trend is for bigger and bigger – and Melbourne Fringe remains (relatively!) small and intimate, yet loud and boisterous. It’s wacky, yet still has a cool Melbourne vibe. It’s like a negroni served out of a ukulele.

Your advice for choosing what to see in the Melbourne Fringe.
Don’t hesitate. Just pick anything! Even if you don’t like it, you’ll still get a good story to yell at the Fringe Club later.

Do you think there’s a better system than star ratings for reviews?
I think actually a review should have a basic constructive criticism model: What Worked, What Didn’t Work, What Can Be Done Better Next Time, maybe if that’s a score out of 5 then it can be out of 15? It’s weird that art should have a value like that, but, hey, it looks good on a poster!

Five shows/events that you will not miss at the 2017 Melbourne Fringe.
MUMMY. A Sexy Comedy Party, Brianna Williams
Sam Marzden’s 1950's B-Grade Sci-Fi Movie
PartyBucket by Lee Naimo & Sophie Kneebone
She Wolf. Who was Queen Margaret?
Death to America by Sean Bedlam