Stand Up for Kids ~ a theatre review

Stand Up for Kids

Produced by the New Zealand Comedy Trust

For the NZ International Comedy Festival

At Q Theatre Loft

On Saturday 03 May, 2014 at 2pm.

Published at http://www.theatreview.org.nz

‘The Big Idea’ website tells us that the ‘New Zealand Comedy Trust runs the NZ International Comedy Festival. The Trust was established in 1995 with the aim of providing a platform for New Zealand comedy in all its forms and to showcase the best of international comedy to New Zealand audiences.’ Big ups to them because the NZ International Comedy Festival has gone from strength to strength in recent years and is now a secure, regular and welcome part of the New Zealand performing arts calendar. Celebrations for the 20^th anniversary in 2015 will no doubt be lavish in revelry and wild carousing.

New Zealand Comedy Trust is listed as the producer of this ninety minute, four part show and the responses from the full house would suggest it was more than a minor hit with the smaller members of the audience at least.

Finn Matheson

Introduced and linked together by the wonderful – and  magical – Fred the Clown, the show features three experienced stand-up comedians doing what they do best (James Acaster, Rhys Mathewson, and Jamie Bowen) with material honed especially for the 5 – 10 age range. At times it was not so much a show of ‘what comes next’ but more along the lines of ‘what’s already happened’ but more of that later.

Fred the Clown warms us up in a somewhat conventional way by asking us ‘how are you’ and having us repeat our reply until she’s happy that we’re all awake. I remain somewhat baffled as to why, when asked ‘how are you’, a group of 100 plus adults will, in unison, reply at the tops of their lungs ‘yeah’. Not to worry, having established that we were all feeling totally ‘yeah’, Fred shared a story about belonging to the ‘Magic Trick of the Month Club’ and offered to show us the latest trick having established that ‘yeah’ we all wanted to see it. ‘The Amazing, Mystical Disappearing Banana’ turns out to be a very excellent trick indeed that I will resist telling you about in case you totter along to the final show, same time, same place, next weekend. ‘The Amazing, Mystical Disappearing Banana’ trick is worth the ticket price on its own.

James Acaster is the first stand-up comedy artiste and the kids quickly establish that he’s 29 years old. ‘Quickly’ is perhaps not the best word to describe the journey to establishing Acaster’s age because kid guesses ranging from 20 to 105 are put forward but we get there in the end after which Acaster continues on his theme of ‘you ask me any question about life or about myself and I’ll answer it’. The kids eventually identify England as his place of origin having circuited the solar system a number of times to finally get there.

Acaster, with his abode finally identified as a farm, teaches the kids how to speak cow while on all fours and does his own magic trick – a smart little year 5 thumb dislocation number – before concluding his set by responding to an audience request for him to skip with a microphone cable. He succeeds, and the sigh of relief from the Q Theatre technical staff is audible.

Acaster is a likeable fellow with a quirky sense of humour who went down well with the kids while still managing to keep the adults in the frame as well.

James Acaster

Fred then did some tricks with a cattle lasso and further endeared herself to everyone in the house. Like Acaster, Fred the Clown is immensely likeable and it’s a clever ploy to have some colour (and some girliness) in the show.

Next up was Rhys Mathewson who took as his premise the phase ‘have you ever done a pooh so big that it …. ‘ (fill in the gap), examples being ‘have you ever done a pooh so big that it made you feel hungry’ and ‘have you ever done a pooh so big that if it had a door you could live in it’. Everyone knows that kids like bodily functions and, while the gag went down really well and Mathewson extemporised on his faecal charade, he possibly spent a bit too much time on it and some of the smaller kids got a bit bored. He recovered them, however, with a lovely – and very funny – story about his school disco and ended on a high note.

Mathewson is a skilled physical comedian with a delicious voice and he uses these abilities to the maximum.

Rhys Mathewson

Fred makes a welcome return with a trick featuring a paper bag and a bottle of tomato sauce, the denouement of which was the topic du jour all the way home after the show.

The final, and perhaps ‘top of the bill’, comedian of the afternoon was the shaven-headed, bearded Jamie Bowen. Like Fred, Acaster and Mathewson before him, Bowen is seriously likeable and we closely follow each and every nuance of his clever set. He has poems (delivered in a faux Spanish accent) that include some witty limericks and some great physical gags the best being the one about his Granddad’s ears but the smash ’em up, car crash conclusion was the hit of the day and a fantastic way to end the show.

Jamie Bowen

Not a criticism but more of an observation, ninety minutes is a long show, especially for the littlies (and the smartarses), and Bowen’s work was affected somewhat by kids referring back to Acaster’s set and wanting to ask – or simply call out – repeats of the questions examined earlier in the show. They’d been given permission after all and I suspect they wanted to interact more in that way. No disrespect to Bowen, he handled it expertly, just one of the trickier things about performing for kids.

The eleven year old who took us to ‘Stand Up for Kids’ was of a similar opinion and, while he had a really good time, he said he got distracted by the calling out towards the end of the show and felt less engaged because he wasn’t able to interact directly with the performers. He’s aware that stand-up and improvisation are seriously different animals but his astute observation was that kids like to do stuff rather than sit, listen and interject. Is there a lesson there? I wonder.

The response from the adults at the end of the show was all-embracing and that suggests that they’d had a seriously good time too. Certainly the performers were all of top quality with Fred the Clown the winner on the day.