Reviews by Anton Kudryashov Jr.

Adam Hess: Salmon is an hour of almost non-stop jokes, spoken at breakneck speeds by a guy who is going places. Although there are plenty of new venues opening up around town for the Fringe period Adam Hess’ show is a pretty good reason to return to the Hive. The rows are cramped, and the floor is still sticky, but the intimate atmosphere of the place seems to be just right for the freshman comedian.His jokes are based around a bond with the audience. You either like him or you don’t, but if you do then almost every joke is going to work. Hess retains a childish playfulness in his humour which draws you in. You can easily tell that he is truly trying his best to make you laugh. His passion comes across quite quickly through the speed of his talking. Hess seems to shoot out a hundred words a minute, sometimes mincing words but never ruining a punch line. His energy is so infectious that soon the joke doesn’t matter: you just laugh because he finds it funny.The majority of Hess’ material comes from the usual comedian’s well – his childhood and past girlfriend experiences. Yet he also has an impressive ability to build links between his life and the common experience of others. His jokes soar highest when he tackles experiences familiar to everyone, as with his spot-on descriptions of the way people have began to communicate through noises in social situations.Hess’ show works in large part because he is an amiable guy. The audience comes to like him so much that halfway through when he, for reasons best left a surprise, puts on a cardboard mask and starts playing bongos, there is nothing awkward about it. That’s just Adam! Some work can go into his pacing. Sometimes he talks so fast that parts of the joke become blurred and the general arc of the show becomes hard to follow. At other times themes are given too much time to develop. Nonetheless Hess has the mind and sense of comedic timing to make a name for himself. His observations are sharp, his intonation hilarious and his energy relentless.He draws full houses and loud laughs because he is not just a funny guy but because he puts so much passion into the show. If you’re wondering whether you will hear about this comedian wonder no longer. He simply has too much energy to stop.

John Lloyd: Emperor of the Prawns is billed as an hour of comedy, but turns out to be so much more. A potent mix of TED Talk and stand-up, Lloyd’s show flawlessly combines anecdotes with inspired ideas.Not many comedians would attempt to explain human existence in an hour, but comedy is not even where Lloyd cut his teeth.Lloyd has an impressive collection of television credits. He is perhaps most famous for being the producer of British television hits such as Spitting Image, Blackadder and QI. Yet it is his friendship with Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, that has the most influence on the subject matter of the show.Although told from a comedic perspective the themes Lloyd handles are very profound and complex. (What is the meaning of life? What is life? How did it begin?) Despite that, the audience never has to get bogged down in the details because of Lloyd’s ability to merge comedy into his act.The humour often comes in the form of anecdotes from the life of either a famous personality, a friend of Lloyd’s, or Lloyd himself. Yet every joke is not just told for a laugh. There are no digressions. Each anecdote has a point to make, or a theory to prove. Humour is the perfect tool in Lloyd’s hands, which he uses to make his ideas accessible.At a glance the set for the show is something that a lecturer would probably feel at home in: a lectern, and a projector screen. That, and his razor sharp wit, is all Lloyd needs to make the audience laugh and simultaneously ponder some of the biggest questions known to man.The best aspect of Lloyd’s monologue is that after each punch line you have to stop and think. The jokes are accessible but when considered in combination with Lloyd’s thought-through ideas, every joke takes on a new meaning and becomes a part of his developing argument.The show itself is a well-oiled routine. The simple presentation behind Lloyd goes from slide to slide without a hitch and Lloyd knows exactly when to turn his back to the audience, when to leave a pause for effect, and when to wander off stage. The punch line is always perfectly timed, and the laughs always come at the right moment.Lloyd’s real strength comes not only from his humour but his ability as a storyteller. Every anecdote is a story, and it only works because Lloyd knows exactly how to tell it. Usually this means putting on a character and doing impressions, which can range from Albert Einstein to a talking wolf.What really pushes the show over to five stars is the way Lloyd concludes the hour of entertainment. As he finishes up his monologue, taking you through another whirlwind of ideas, his central message is revealed. Just like the show, it’s simple, elegant, and not to be missed.

The Missing Hancocks is a genuine blast from the past. The hour-long show breathes life into two scripts from the mid-50s radio comedy series Hancock’s Half Hour. Doing the breathing on the Assembly Rooms stage is a stellar cast led by Kevin McNally in the role of Tony Hancock.Some context: Hancock’s Half Hour was a hugely popular show in Britain during its radio, and then television, run between 1954 and 1961. It starred Tony Hancock, a popular actor and comedian, and was written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, two writers who pioneered the sitcom genre. In short, the humour is very British and had your grandparents crying with laughter.The stage adaptation uses original scripts found by the director, Neil Pearson. These particular scripts are unique because the recordings for them are ‘missing’ from the BBC archive. Therefore, the onstage production gives its audience the opportunity to hear these episodes for the first time since the 1950s!This adaptation is very true to the form. The stage is set simply, with two retro broadcasting microphones, five chairs for the cast when they are not in the ‘scene’, and a blinking red light, which indicates when they are ‘on the air’. The feeling is that you are inside a recording studio.The show is energised by its lively cast: Kevin McNally, Simon Greenall, Alex Lowe, Robin Sebastian and Susy Kane. When the reading goes live each actor has a script in hand and keeps his or her eyes glued to the pages. Movement on stage is very limited, and the world of the episode is created in the collective imagination of audience and cast.The (voice) acting is spot on, with each actor indistinguishable from their series counterpart. Sebastian stands out especially as the posh character actor, taking on bit parts with aplomb.Needless to say, this is a performance with a legacy, and it shows. When it works it feels like an inside joke, as if everyone has secretly heard this episode before, but that doesn’t stop the humour from being just as witty and the laughs being just as loud as they were in the original recordings.On the other hand, if you are not in on the joke sometimes the laughs pass by. Even though these ‘missing’ episodes have a unique history no one said they were the best in the cannon. Furthermore, one wonders if perhaps there is a reason the original Half Hour never took to stage and made the jump straight to television.The show is at its best when the actors go off-script: acknowledging out-dated references, or fluffed lines, or apologising for the odd joke. Reminding the audience that this is a loving tribute.It is exactly those moments, which give the feeling that each showing will not just be a reading, but a unique experience in which not everything will go right, but like in the life of the fictional Hancock himself, everything will end on a punch line.

Winter Is Coming. Again. by the Australian comedy group, Backwards Anorak, will be funny and relevant for fans of the hit HBO series Game of Thrones, but maybe not ideal for those going into the show unaware.The narrative is centred around the main character Vince (Milesi) competing with the more obvious choice Michelle (Brasier) over who will play the coveted role of Khaleesi (the female role) in the musical version of Game of Thrones they are currently performing. Vince may not look much like the Mother of Dragons – and the blonde wig and bikini top do not help – but what he lacks in likeness he more than makes up for in passion, with hilarious results.Joining them on stage are their understudies, played by Laura Frew and Leo Milesi. They play characters who are unafraid to use their superior talents to occasionally flip off the audience, climb over seats and don ridiculous outfits in order to appease the mentoring eye of Vince, who always knows better. They provide some of the best comedic segments of the show - Frew stands out especially as the enthusiastic cast member who knows exactly what to do. Completing the troupe is Joe Kosky playing the keyboard and the occasional character.The show does not excel at musical numbers. Some songs are catchy, especially the Red Wedding number, but when they come up the songs are often over too quickly and the cast does not quite have the vocal chords to make them resonate. The cast is, on the other hand, great with audience participation. Ranging from casting a Hodor, to calling on the audience to make ‘incest noises’, or using them as a ‘the wall’. Audience interaction was always clever, inventive and ultimately very funny.The show is very much made by Game of Thrones fans, for Game of Thrones fans. The cast counts on an ‘initiated’ audience and an assumed knowledge is very important for the jokes to fly, which means if you’ve seen the television series odds are you’ll be laughing, but if not, then the laughs really are harder to grasp.Perhaps Backwards Anorak is only at fault for assuming that everyone who comes to their show is a GoT fan, though, to be fair, a lot of them are and so will find plenty of humour here. Backwards Anorak have bravely jumped on the Game of Thrones bandwagon and milked the series for all the hilarity that could be squeezed out of it.