Published April 2012 by Beat
John Foreman is the well-known conductor of numerous on-screen orchestras including those seen on Australian Idol, Young Talent Time and the Logies. However, he sometimes has to play the rather unfortunate role of ‘fall guy’. While he has produced Anthony Callea’s The Prayer, was musical director on Bert Newton’s Good Morning Australia and wrote a song (sung by Tina Arena) for the 2000 Olympic Games, taking the top conducting job sometimes means getting stuck in the middle of some awkward situations.
“Whenever the orchestra starts to play under a speechmaker at an awards night, I think there’s a bit of a ‘shoot the messenger’ philosophy that applies to the audience and to the person making the speech…The person making the speech assumes that the orchestra is bored and wants to get rid of them, whereas most likely it’s the director who’s up in the truck, who has then instructed the orchestra to play them off.”
Foreman comes across as a charming and surprisingly modest subject in our interview. Yet modesty is an unreliable indicator of success; both he and Todd McKenney feature in the advertisements promoting their upcoming collaboration with Chloe Dallimore (from the musical Annie) in two Australian Pops Orchestra performances at Crown Casino, on 18 and 19 May.
Ever the professional, Foreman is eager to heap praise on his co-star.
“After watching [McKenney] on Dancing With the Stars, I have to admit I got a little apprehensive about working with him.” Foreman admits. “I thought he might bring the grumpy judge attitude into work with him, but I’m thrilled to be able to report that he’s actually a great guy and lots of fun to work with…I’m really looking forward to working with him again.”
It’s difficult to perceive Foreman in a bad light; somehow, he manages to be honest without ever being impolite, most likely a skill honed after years working in the media industry. Take, for example, his deliciously astute observations about piano brands when he notes, “I have a little Yamaha baby grand…They’re kind of like the Toyota or Ford of pianos. You know exactly what you’re going to get. Every Ford Fiesta is the same as every other Ford Fiesta with the exception of the colour or the leather trim or whatever…But you know what you’re going to get.”
Like any good conductor, Foreman knows that the focus should always remain on entertainment. “[My challenge] is bringing all the elements together…to navigate our way through quite a diverse range of music that will be everything from pieces like Clair de Lune, the beautiful [Claude] Debussy orchestral piece, to Todd McKenney, who will most likely be singing I Go to Rio or I Still Call Australia Home from The Boy From Oz. So there’s quite a range of musical styles there, but I think that’s what is essential to keep the audience entertained.”
While Foreman is usually in the thick of the musical action, he does occasionally get to enjoy the fruits of his labours from a more relaxed perspective, such as when he composed a song for the Olympics called The Flame.
“On the [opening night of the 2000 Olympics] I was sitting in the audience watching the whole thing happen, hoping that nobody fell over and forgot the words,” he says. “It wasn’t actually until about ten minutes after the song was performed that I got a little text from my friend, saying ‘I’m over here in London and I just saw your song on the BBC’—that’s when it hit me that [the Olympics] was such an incredible thing to be a part of.”
Of course, the glamour of conducting an orchestra on live television has obvious appeal to outsiders. But the elements that go unnoticed are, in Foreman’s situation, the parts that remain the most crucial. As a seasoned live-television conductor, Foreman is well aware of the potential for disaster and hence constantly alert for anything that might feed the blooper reel.
“Television is a bit of a microscope.” He says. “Any small blunders that you might get away with in a live environment—where you’ve got an audience there—you would never get away with in close-up [when] everything is there for all to see. And it’s also there permanently now, with YouTube and the media that surrounds that on the internet. If you make a mistake people will gleefully put it up on the internet and it will be there for all time.”
With something like the Logies, the danger is magnified. “My great fear there is we’re going to mess with the order of the play-ons and play Home and Away when it’s really Neighbours that’s required. Or to play A Current Affair when the ABC has just won an award. Thankfully that has not happened so far, in all the years that I’ve done that show. That’s one particular show that keeps all of the orchestra on their toes.”
One can only hope that there’ll be no speechmakers or play-ons to handle with the Australian Pops Orchestra.
The Australian Pops Orchestra will be performing with Todd McKenney, John Foreman and Chloe Dallimore at The Palms Crown Casino on 18 and 19 May. Tickets are on sale at www.ticketek.com.
Published April 2012 in Crikey
Imaan Hadchiti’s wicked 2011 show, A Little Perspective, was a tantalising promise to the audience that this little guy (at something like 3-foot-nothing in height) had a crazy knack for bulldozing people who patronised him for being a ‘little person’.
So it was with keen interest that I approached his latest offering, Bigger Than Jesus, only to be disappointed by an unstructured, wandering, poorly planned attempt to inject a different flavour into a routine that already worked so well. It wasn’t broken, but Imaan tried to fix it.
It starts off promisingly. Imaan is, naturally, Jesus Christ, complete with requisite facial hair, white robe and the kind of ass-wiggling that would make background dancers in rap videos very proud.
But it quickly becomes apparent that Jesus jokes are not where Imaan’s strength really lies. ‘God’ comes into the picture through the speakers in a pre-recorded message, but the rapport between him and Jesus just doesn’t come off that well. The interactions are unpolished and awkward and it’s hard to get into the spirit of a gag that is mildly funny to begin with, but difficult to sustain for an entire show.
That’s not to say that Bigger Than Jesus didn’t have some bright sparks every once in a while, but the weaknesses of Imaan’s show became clear when two guest comedians (Gordon Southern and Anil Desai) appeared onstage at separate intervals. They dazzled with jokes that were probably well-rehearsed and often used but, most importantly, they were jokes that each comedian was totally comfortable with. It contrasted sharply with Imaan’s material, which veered somewhat aimlessly from homosexuality to a whisper of politics and, of course, religion.
Imaan can be a crudely funny guy when he’s comfortable with his material. Bigger Than Jesus shows gumption, in that Imaan broke new comedy ground rather than staying in his comfort zone. He took a shot and that shows a certain level of promise. While it felt as though the material in Bigger Than Jesus didn’t gel this year, Imaan can always ‘turn the other cheek’ (like the big guy upstairs) and have another crack next year.
The Comedy Festival has finished for 2012.
Published April 2012 by Crikey
It’s hard to say whether the descriptor ‘jazz-infused comedy’, as listed on the Comedy Festival website, really does The Horne Section any justice. It’s best to state now that such a description fails to encapsulate this show at all, the heady, delicious juggernaut that it is. The Horne Section doesn’t really attempt to be anything other than a bit of fun, so if you like staying in your comfort zone, it’s not going to blast you into uncomfortable territory.
Six gentlemen in bright pink shirts and black suits walk up on stage and prepare their instruments – piano, bass guitar, drums, saxophone, trumpet, and for lead singer Alex Horne, the microphone. And what a talent that man has for making his audience swoon under the hypnotic silliness of his dorky tomfoolery.
While the band makes up any tune that’s called for, Alex spends his time either torturing individual members of the audience or miming to a slapstick recording of remixed pop songs. He’s also responsible for spinning the Wheel of Wonder, which is presumably intended to create a different show each night and allows the performers to avoid endlessly repeating the same schtick.
While the other members of the band sometimes did let the boredom slip (they had the tendency to look like they were just about to clock off from a day shift and catch a train home for dinner), The Horne Section is a clever, witty approach to comedy-with-music, which is not to be confused with musical comedy. It’s an enigmatic blend of two mutually compatible worlds that audiences will happily lap up.
One thing that does appear consistent is the band’s happy dependence on other acts to add a new dimension to their show. The idea is that they invite two comedians to take turns utilising the improv skills of the band to enhance whatever skit they choose to use on stage. Wil Anderson made his appearance this evening, but unfortunately he proved pretty much incapable of thinking outside the non-musical box. He wasted the potential of the band by employing them as background noise while he recited what, in all respects, seemed like a run-of-the-mill Will Anderson comedy routine.
But Des Bishop, the other comedian of the night, really showed the audience how to milk every aspect of such a rich self-promotional activity. He completely blew all competition out of the water with his hedonistic rapper fantasy. While the band tapped out a rap beat, Bishop pulled a volunteer singer up from the front row (hence arousing suspicions that this was a tad rehearsed, but nonetheless) and got her to sing the chorus to Michael Jackson’s ‘You Are Not Alone’ while he rapped out the Melbourne-centric lyrics he had scrawled out on a piece of paper. With his rough New Yorker accent, the impromptu feel of the event, and the cool nonchalance of a band that seems to bang out tunes like they’re making toast, it’s clear to see that when this concept works, it really does deliver.
See this show for the quirky British folk, led by Alex Horne, and supplemented by a reputation that allows this act to pull high-level comedians for guest appearances. Go for the serenading of an audience member as he is handed Tim Tams and VB. Just don’t go for a laid-back, moody jazz session, because you’ll walk out pretty peeved you actually wrangled yourself a classily executed, deliciously silly comedy act.
Published April 2010 in Crikey
Me Pregnant! has very little to do with actually being pregnant. It features only in the beginning, when the story revolves around the monstrous survivor of a doomed litter and their mother.
The person who led some terrorised villagers to slay the beast ends up living a life of isolation and despair after the villagers turn on her when things don’t go back to perfect living after the death of the monster.
It’s a weird, twisted affair with numerous creepy characters and the usual mandatory modern references, only in this case it’s to stuff like Le Snak biscuit-and-cheese packs and answering telephones in full medieval attire. Me Pregnant! doesn’t really takes itself too seriously, thank goodness, because it makes the peculiar storyline easier to swallow.
Nick Coyle’s stage presence seems to be the primary engine behind this curious, quirky, mind-bending and time-warping show. His performance will not necessarily suit everyone’s tastes; for some reason, it makes me think it’s very ‘Gen Y’ for its self-referencing, post-modern twist on medieval satire.
But it’s hard to deny that Coyle has talent, and that whenever he is onstage he is effortlessly commanding the attention of the entire audience. He also has gumption, considering he spends the entire time on stage in a short black smock and blindingly red stockings.
It’s interesting to watch someone operate on a limited budget but maximise effectiveness. His props are cheap but cleverly used; you’d never think fake candles could work so well, but the way Coyle utilises them demonstrate that a bit of tacky electronics work can get you far. If you’re up for something a little bit different, Me Pregnant! is certainly that. But it’s also an ambitious and genuinely entertaining slice of oddity that aligns perfectly with the kind of diverse acts to appear at the comedy festival over the years.
Nick Coyle in Me Pregnant! is on at the Melbourne Town Hall, Tuesday – Saturday 6pm, Sunday 5pm until April 22nd.
Published April 2012 in Crikey
If you’re really after a famous celebrity to tell you how you can better yourself, Tina is your gal. This ‘nine-time Grammy-award winning’ country music singer is here to discuss (in her painful southern twang) what she calls our ‘Abor-jye-nal’ issue. For her show Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word, she’s come equipped with a bunch of slideshows, a tiny pair of shorts and a scattering of diamantes slathered on most aspects of her coquettish country outfit. She’s the bitchy high-school friend you never wanted.
After interviewing artist Christopher Green recently, it’s hard to reconcile him with his most well-known character. She is this sequinned, fringe-covered woman with enviable legs, and he is the artist who only a few weeks ago sheepishly acknowledged to me his love for country music.
Tina is more than an antithesis to Green, she is Tina, a personality au fait. She is horrible but in a fascinating way, like picking an itchy scab, and so real that Green seems to disappear completely beneath the façade.
Tina C is not a drag show, at least not in the conventional sense. Green is simply inhabiting a different person in order to talk about controversial topics. It’s a shame, then, that the mere fact that he is playing a role seems to have thrust his particular brand of entertainment into the ambiguous cloud of parody shows, ones that don’t attempt anything near as interesting as what Green is doing here.
Take, for instance, Tina’s ‘guest’ on the show. Auriel Andrews is an Aboriginal country singer and tiny lady with a voice that will rip your heartstrings out and play them like a ukulele. Her rendition of ‘Yowie’, with its theme of motherhood, loss and the Stolen Generation, quells a somewhat cheerful crowd to stunned and emotional silence. Even the musician at hand, James Henry (the late Jimmy Little’s grandson) seemed to get a bit teary-eyed as the song drew to a close. But it works, if only just making it within the confines of a ‘comedy’ show. I’ll be darned if I know how Tina does it.
It’s difficult to designate a specific genre for this show. It’s part political polemic with a light touch, part character-acting and part straight-out comedy. Tina does have a tendency to get a tiny bit preachy. Fortunately Green mostly gets away with it because Tina only wants to make Jesus happy and create albums with titles like If You Can’t Live Without Me, Why Weren’t You Dead When I Met You? And when Tina flashes that game-show-host smile, you can only whimper, begrudgingly think ‘Oh, go ahead’, and then find yourself doing a line dance to a tasteless country remix of Abor-jye-nal-themed songs at the end of the show. While getting an Australian audience to do anything more strenuous than clap is a little like pulling teeth, Tina does manage to do it in the end. She makes it feel pretty fabulous.
Published April 2012 in Crikey
It’s easy to see why Dave Thornton has become a familiar face on Channel 10’s The Project – he’s the kind of flannelette-wearing, well-coiffed, skinny-leg-jeans wearing fresh ‘personality’ who bounces up on screen and gets things moving. He is the archetypal early-30s Australian man, evidenced by his comedy show The Some of All the Parts, which has that somewhat ubiquitous adult-male phenomenon of being obsessed with the dorky toys you loved as a kid.
The opening of his performance is a tip-of-the-hat to effort, as Thornton takes a ‘phone call’ before the start of the show and uses it as an excuse to mess with some audience members. It’s a strong opening aided by Thornton’s bullet-quick quips and snappy retorts. You really can’t catch him out for too long; sooner rather than later he bounces straight back at you faster than a squash ball.
Thornton’s material is consistently strong, with a decent range and a hefty amount of audience ribbing – pity the fools who sit in the front row. As with many comedy shows, Thornton’s sex-based material is the strongest. It’s even stronger when the materials includes one particularly hilarious story about his mum, a sexual health nurse, dealing with a recalcitrant teenage student who was trying to explain a slang word for ‘semen’ by gesturing to his crotch.
Hearing about Thornton making a fool of himself is also an oft-recurring theme in this show. It’s a routine that seems to suit this guy down to a tee, since he’s got the goofball attitude tempered by the semi-hipster trendy exterior. This inoffensive blend makes it easy for him to appeal to a wide target audience and still hit the mark with stories about hitting on ‘hot’ school teachers and hating the idealistic young kid who heads off to build schools in Uganda for a year.
Overall, it’s a show that demonstrates Thornton’s skill, his fast-but-bearable pace, and his lightning quick ability to make any situation work in his favour.
Dave Thornton in The Some of All the Parts is on Tuesday – Saturday 9:30pm and Sunday 8:30pm in the Swiss Club, from 29th March – 22 April.
Published April 2012 in Crikey
Tom Ballard is one half of the bodiless duo of voices responsible for Tom and Alex’s radio breakfast show on Triple J. So it was a pleasure, at last, to connect the voice to a real-life body as Ballard touted his comedy festival show, Doing Stuff.
When comparing his stand-up to his radio work, it almost seems as though Ballard is the (funnier) Andy of a Hamish and Andy equation. When Ballard has co-host Alex Dyson to bounce material off, the comedy is at its funniest and most natural. Without a partner in the public arena, Ballard’s shtick is like listening to the sound of one-hand clapping.
The problem with Doing Stuff is that it is precisely what it describes – aimless and not always on the mark, although it is sometimes amusing. Ballard really falters with the political material, especially because it forces the audience onto a downwards slide before dragging everyone up again. It’s the old conundrum of two steps back, one step forward; Ballard is probably trying to get a little edgy, but by being uncomfortable with what he is presenting, he is cutting himself off at the knees in the process.
His sex jokery is where it gets funniest. There’s vomit, there’s oral sex, and Ballard manages to throw it all into the mix and come out with some painfully hilarious sex stories. Ballard’s self-deprecating nature slides out effortlessly, and it’s fortunate that he chose to end with the sex material. It might be older, but it’s still stronger than what came before it.
The great thing about Ballard is that he is so young and so evidently talented. This festival’s show just seems a big run-up to something that better defines the type of comedian that he is. Doing Stuff just seems to emphasise that he hasn’t yet grasped what that might be.
Tom Ballard in Doing Stuff is on Tuesday – Saturday at 7:00pm and Sunday at 6:00pm at the Swiss House from 29th March – 22nd April.
Published April 2012 by Crikey
Here’s a good place to be: in the front row of a sweating crowd with comedian Glenn Wool screaming at the audience. It will be bloody hot in that room, but the jokes are set up and knocked over with such startling precision that you’ll happily sit out the heatwave.
Overall, Wool’s schtick is a little from here and little from there, perhaps cleverly adding a second meaning to his aptly titled 2012 show No Lands Man. While the title actually references his no-fixed-address status, Wool manages to crowbar a delightfully workable structure into his routine. It allows him to sweep his paintbrush through topics such as sex with swans, getting anally probed at customs, drinking Belgian beer, seeing Iron Maiden live, and a getting angry about the productivity of beavers in a 20-minute spiel. Such a layout may not make sense in summary, but within Wool’s show it all seems to fit together in a routine only a good comedian can establish so roundly. And yes, it really is possible to structure an entire show around one overarching, recurring concept and still have the show be consistently, laugh-out-loud funny.
If you’re deaf, Wool is also the perfect comedy candidate, because he spends a large portion of the show yelling loudly at the audience. That’s not to say that this delivery doesn’t work, because Wool’s a specialist on the comedy genre hereafter called ‘pent-up-guy-rage’; the type that occurs when you feel that beavers work harder than you do, or when Indonesian customs officials are threatening to stick digits up your behind.
Wool works the usual smutty jokes, but he makes his show interesting by way of his numerous and strangely complex metajokes; sometimes his one-liners are so quick, or so layered, that it’s hard to keep up and really does put paid to his claim of working in the industry for 18 years. Under all that loud-mouthed yelling machismo, I feel as though Glenn Wool is a giant softie susceptible to more strenuous airport security primarily because he looks like a roadie and has a tendency to compare customs officers to beagles. Wool could also comprehensively decimate most people by sheer force of decibels. No Mans Land may need a volume touch-up, but a tightly honed structure and deceptively clever undercurrent override minor audio objections. For a guy who officially has no fixed address, Glenn Wool makes stand-up comedy look a little like coming home to an old friend.
Published April 2012 at Crikey
While Anne Edmonds’ show My Banjo’s Name is Steven does indeed include the titular banjo, this is really a show about how we should all feel better about the fact we’re not Anne. If anything, the special blend of Edmonds’ comedy has a strong focus on proving to the audience just how much you should be glad you’re not her. It’s not so much a sad-sack affair as a celebration of crotch-thrusting and the Australian way of taking the piss, even if you’re taking yourself down. And Edmonds – in all her nanna-bather glory – plays on the pity-someone-else theme, because while the audience pities Anne Edmonds, she pities a former housemate called Rebecca, who has a naff Aussie accent and a propensity to moon at North Melbourne football club haters. You know that whatever happens, you just have to hope to goodness that Rebecca’s never going to see this show.
Edmonds has the type of naturally hopeless persona that works well with this particular vein of comedy. This includes a pretty duet between piano player ‘Amy’ and Edmonds, who sings about being forced to parade around the streets of Glen Iris in bathers from Savers. Edmonds has clearly found the type of comedy that suits her, primarily the one that offers plenty of opportunities to do wicked dork dances and heaps of booty-shaking (this was a recurring motion that, I argue, could become a theme on its own). My preferred Edmonds physical comedy schtick is what I will affectionately refer to as her ‘Oh shit’ face; it was the look Edmonds gave every time she made a crack about bad anal sex, being addicted to McLeod’s Daughters or any other selection from the cornucopia of humiliating stories she must have tucked away in her comedy repertoire.
Edmonds has a small attempt at personification, hence the title My Banjo’s Name is Steven, but there’s little else about this show that really has much to do with Steven at all. Sure, Steven makes a few brief and valuable appearances, particularly in a song describing the suicidal plans of a depressed possum named Jimbo, but this is more a show about Anne being hapless and weird, which seems to be one of the most beloved themes of Australian comedy for, well, ever.
There are some absolutely golden moments, and while it took her a few minutes to work her way into the opening of the show, the end was a credit to her entire theme of social ineptitude. Perhaps the most important note was that Edmonds ended on a high note. You may never, however, look at nanna clothing the same way again.
Anne Edmonds in My Banjo’s Name is Steven is on Tuesday – Saturday at 7:15pm and Sunday at 6:15pm, from 29th March – 22nd April.
Published March 2012 in Beat magazine
Christopher Green is coming to Melbourne to show off his onstage persona Tina C. She is Green’s sassy American country-and-western singer, one who thinks she can solve everything from terrorism to the global financial crisis. While Tina has already aired her thoughts on post-9/11 terrorism, Tina’s moved on to Aboriginal reconciliation in the new Tina C (Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word).
Tina’s outlandish behaviour onstage suggests Green himself might love the limelight. But then, when you meet him, he’s one of the most softly spoken and polite English gents you’re going to come across. Nothing about him suggests that he has a well-known second personality (aside from several others, including Ida Barr, a rapping pensioner) that pushes more buttons than a telephone operator.
As Green notes, “[In the beginning], I think I was very nervous about being a performer, and I think what I did instinctively was I picked a character that was the least like me that it was possible to be…so I picked a woman, I picked an American, I picked someone really high status, really successful, someone who thought they were really beautiful and deserved to be looked at, you know all of these things that were very useful characteristics for me. I also love country music.”
One of Tina C’s most infamous acts includes a ‘Twin Towers Tribute’ show, with the main poster of her act using her (rather fabulously toned) legs in place of the twin towers in the New York skyline. But Green has a good reason for having Tina do things her way.
“Tina’s a really useful theatrical tool for me to do things with…I want to make shows and examine what’s going on in the world, and I’ve chosen a sort of trashy way of doing that…I naturally pick subject matters that interest me, and that people go ‘Oh, you can’t really make a comedy show about that’, and I go ‘why not?’…It all fell into place when I did a show about 9/11…I’d just been in America for two months when 9/11 happened and I just thought America’s not working, it’s really weird. It was a really sort of place, with aggressive capitalism. So I had something to say and I thought Tina was the perfect person to do it.”
For the new show Tina will be showcasing Auriel Andrews an Aboriginal country musician famous for her seventies hit ‘Truck Driving Woman’. Green explains how they came to collaborate, namely through Green seeing the Aboriginal country music documentary Buried Country: The Story of Aboriginal Country Music.
“I heard about this [documentary] and I got the DVD and I was blown away by it…I instantly thought, well, there’s a show in here, for me, because it’s about country music, and it’s how people get on…The person that I really related to in that documentary was Auriel Andrews. I thought she was great, she was really spunky and witty and warm and lovely…I tracked her down and asked her to be in the show with me, and that’s how we got to know each other.”
When Green mentions his role as artist-in-residence at the British Library, the topic of “success” comes up. Green turns bashful, the very antithesis of Tina C. “I certainly wasn’t successful when I started [playing] Tina, so that was the dynamic then.” Green says. ”I think there’s a very nice heat that comes from arrogance and confidence, and it’s very un-British. It’s a cliché but we don’t do that…[The British] find it interesting to have someone who goes [with an American accent] ‘Hey I’ve won nine Grammys, doncha love me?’, because we would never do that. Now I feel really lucky, because I get to do what I’m interested in doing and I make a living out of it. And I explore issues that I want to do, so that’s a very lucky position to be in. And I’ve never auditioned for anything in my life, so that’s lucky…If I’m successful it’s because it’s on my own terms, and that feels good.”
Christopher Green will be touring in Tina C (Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word) for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival from 28–14 April. For more information, see www.comedyfestival.com.au.
