Dash and D'Bree Take It...
1 April 2011
Portland Hotel
to 10 April
www.comedyfestival.com.au
As a middle-aged spunk rat who likes to browse the Laura Ashley sales rack at my leisure, Dash and D'Bree are everything I despise about shopping and gen Y; no wonder I adore them.
I first wandered into a mall where they worked in 2009. They've since been fired from every off-the-rack fash boot in the suburb, but the Dotti Girl Clearance Outlet has two vacancies and the girls might have matured enough to last a whole day.
Katrina Mroz and Hayley Butcher created their grotesquely gorgeous duo after meeting at St Martins Youth Arts Centre. Self-involved, ridiculously dressed and dreaming about their totes orig song for Australia's Got Talent, their diet of Aero bars and UDLs keeps them in shape for any karaoke bar, and work would be perfs if the customers wouldn't bother them.
Satire that doesn't totes come from understanding is a waste of time. Like the only really funny Adelaide jokes are from people who live(d) in Adelaide, the only peeps who can satirise gen Y with enough love to make it rib-aching funny are those who don't believe that anyone could live without an iPhone and think it's cool (people still say cool, right?) to live with your parents in your 20s.
And it's the twenty-somethings who can't get enough of Dash and D'Bree. They recognise themselves and are laughing with them. Oldies may still be laughing at, but we can see Rod Quantock (over 40s) or Eddie Perfect (over 30s) for our generational in-jokes.
With Wes Snelling at the directorial reins, Take It... is more sketch than story, but this is perfect for an early-evening Comedy Festival show in the bar of a hotel. And there are divine new atrocious song and dance numbers (go just to find out what UDL stands for) and new characters. When they make their tv show (I still think they're heading towards Kath and Kim status), there will be room for story and for the hint of vulnerability and that is going to take them into everyone's hearts.
And if you see me pulling my sequined hot pants out of my camel toe, well you'd better go to Dash and D'Bree's show and blame them in person.
This review appears on AussieTheate.com
