Oh this dude is a funny guy.  I would like all to see him. I know you who read this are from the demographic of the ‘Prefer To Spend Money on Booze and Maybe Rent’ area of the money graph, but you must splash out.  This gentleman deserves his audience.   We were up in the vault of The Classic, a cosy wee space for those of you who haven’t been and this was one of the first things that Elis James responded to.  In a ‘take that mum and dad’ kind of way he attributed this small room with the audience of about sixty to having made it big.  This was the sign of his success.  I knew from this opening that this was a fellow who didn’t take his comedy to seriously, or at least knows that his audience doesn’t want to take him seriously so why should he.

Elis James is a Welshman who has mastered the art of telling a good tale.  His anecdotes are clever and brilliantly elaborated on with some over exuberant actions, the occasional accent, which were very good by the way, and just perfect timing.  My favourite episode of his is where he got us singing a Wham song.  He talked about how he and his friends were looking to make a quick buck (or pound if we’re being geographically correct) as teenage boys, and that his friend’s genius plan was for the trio to become carol singers.  In September.  Needless to say, from one episode they managed to make £30.  I shan’t spoil it for you by telling you how they did this.  This is me hoping that the intrigue will have you filling one of the seats at his gig. 

I implore you to make this man more famous.  I implore you to find out about his relationship with One Direction’s Harry Styles (I just realised he spells his surname ‘Styles’ not Stiles.  I want to punch him in his annoying squinty eyes).  I strongly suggest you find out about his father’s soapy member.  The best way I can think that you’d succeed in doing this is by going to see him live.  He really is very good at talking, so good even he doesn’t know how to end it.

I understand that as a New Zealand audience we’re a bit tough.  Our first impressions mean a lot and it can take time for us to warm up to you.  I think this is what Chris Martin noticed standing up on stage confronted by middle aged men with intimidatingly shiny balled heads and crossed arms over their portly bellies.  I suspect that is something to fear as a young, and a spot good looking foreign fellow. 

Critics seem to enjoy him, and I laughed.  But I can’t really recall what I was laughing at which is probably more a remark on me than it is on him.  One woman in the audience was taking notes.  Not texting.  Not deleting her contacts, as one Frenchman had done at one of his shows.  She was taking notes.  I suspect she was a reviewer who had the foresight to be jotting down a couple of one-liners.  I wish I’d thought of that.  Because I hadn’t, I’m now stuck writing a review on a fellow whose act I can’t entirely recall.

His act has no particular structure from where I was sitting as he talked about his fear of dogs, which sprouts from no particular incident… except the incident where he was engaged in a staring competition with a pug, in which he was the victor.  He also talked about his wasteful nature, the unintended Generation of Wasters that he’s a part of and spent a lot of time finding out from the audience how they use plastic containers, not being able to fathom why someone would transport cereal from its package to a plastic container.  A heckler explained: “weevles”. 

He was certainly entertaining.  He made me guffaw a few times and I think, once he manages to win over his emotionless audiences in New Zealand, he’ll become fairly popular.  And there was only one wanking joke and only one reference to paedophilia… mind you, those got some big laughs… perhaps last night he found what the Kiwi audience finds funny.  We’re a class act kind of audience.

Is this Guy Williams?  

 Or is this?

The above is a pointless exercise in the success of Google searching.  The “Guy Williams” at the top is an American actor from a time gone by (presumably, with that moustache).  The “Guy Williams” at the bottom is a New Zealand comedian featuring in this year’s Comedy Fest.  May I suggest that you pop along to the Old Folks Ass. to see him? It’s koha entry which suggests to me that those who wish to save money on the price of a ticket can then spend it on the lovely sparkly women standing on the suspiciously ill-lit corner…  Unlike a cheap prosie, this Guy Williams is worth the dollar I paid to see him.  In fact I felt guilty for not paying more for his services.  I was entertained for an appropriate amount of time and I got a bit warm too (from all the laughing and the hot room).  Now, because I think I’ve taken this far enough in terms of how suggestive I’m prepared to make it, let’s get to brass tacks. 

Guy Williams is a funny kind of fellow.  I walked in with my friend and he shook our hands.  I appreciated that, definitely one for public relations, you know, building a rapport with those who are giving you money.  It makes sense to get them on side early.  We sat down in the Old Folks Association Hall just off K. Road and were immediately struck by a young hipsters incredible moustache.  The challenge was set:  Williams was going to be measured on how well he could distract us from the facial hair of this young man.  First let me tell you, this young man had the most pretentious eyebrows I’ve ever seen and then a moustache with greased up curled ends to match.  Perhaps he misunderstood which Guy Williams he was coming to see.  I have decided that he needs to spend more time under his mother’s eye.  She would surely tell him to buck up his ideas in the wink of said eye and then slap him with a teatowel round the ears to make sure he understood.

Speaking of mothers, this is where Williams spent a bit of his time.  Through a multimedia daydream of technologically inadequate delight, we were taken through Mrs Williams’ unedited emails, revealing undercurrents of racism and naïve trust in people who love to give millions away…  Williams also reveals a somewhat hidden talent.  If he decided he no longer wanted the challenge of comedy he could give it all up and be a mildly successful rap artist.  This man has the skills to kill like a mother ‘uckin’ killer.  Word. 

But seriously, this comedy is not to be taken lightly because Guy Williams is a fellow that is well worth upwards of fifteen and twenty dollars for a good night out.  Don’t be a cheapskate.  If you have to opportunity to see him in this capacity, take it.  Shake his hand while you’re there.  But don’t ‘lube up’ before you do as one of the audience members claimed to.  He’ll no doubt poke fun of you.  Fair enough though because that was a bit weird…

 (Challenge results:  Guy Williams 4 ½     Moustache Face -19147 (approximately))

Urban, part of Auckland Arts Festival, from Circolombia 2013

I’d been looking forward to seeing Urban since I first saw it featuring on those generally always annoying ads that play continuously on the Link buses.  When I left the show last night I sent a text immediately to my best friend, “oh man oh man oh man.  Just saw the Colombian circus.  A circus made up of two women and about fifteen beautiful and built black men.  Oh man oh man oh man, I think I’m genuinely in love.”  So, I think you can say I was satisfied from the beginning right through to the glorious end…

Removing my rampant hormones, which are probably behaving in a grossly offensive manner, from the equation the show itself was brilliant.  You walk into the theatre with Latin music enveloping you in its warm and sexy hug.  I was sitting in my seat waiting for the show to start as a person prone to seat dancing, I was itching to have a wriggle around in time to the music.  I was, however, naturally worried that I would have all the appearance of a woman suffering the effects of worms, and would not at all be representing the sultry Latin temptress I was attempting to exude.  So I repressed my inner nature and sat on my hands. 

The show began between the two female cast members.  They appeared all friendly and comradely and then there’s a moment of disagreement where the lines are drawn swiftly between good and evil.  And so the show is set for the classic (and expected) narrative of baddies and goodies fighting it out, interwoven through nerve-wracking stunts and original music pieces. 

The show is not without its moral reminders as the true stories of some of the circus folks are brought before us. The main story tells of the rough Colombian streets and one of the cast members being saved by the circus, learning lessons of the dangers of money and all those honourably uplifting things that accompany a family show. 

Despite it being a family show it was still raw and edgy and, dare I say it, damned sexy.  I was sitting next to AUT’s correspondent and I worry I annoyed the bajinkies out of her.  I was on edge nearly the entire show.  At the beginning I think there must have been some ‘first-show nerves’ as there were a few slip ups.  In the type of stunts they were doing, thrusting people onto a tower of two other people, mistakes would make anyone apprehensive.  Every clap I gave was a “thank the Lord you’ve made it!”  As the show progressed though, I think the cast became more comfortable on the stage and with us as their most appreciative and awestruck audience.

It was an unfortunate difficulty that I didn’t speak any Spanish because I feel like I missed a whole lot of what was going on.  It would have been excellent for one of two options to occure: a) as I walked over the threshold of the theatre my brain immediately (and free of charge) downloaded an entire Spanish dictionary.  Or b) subtitles scroll across the screens that were at the back of the stage.  As pathetic as it may sound, I felt that I couldn’t support them or respond with the deserved number of claps and wolf whistles because I didn’t speak the language me and all the other Kiwis in the audience spoke.

Despite this language barrier, these guys and gals sure knew how to entertain us.  It’s unfortunate their season is so short.  At the end of the show, we were invited to purchase merchandise and have a sweaty hug with some of the cast.  Oh me-oh my I regret not taking up the offer of a sexy, sorry, sweaty hug.  I may just find myself trying to get along to their show again, before the season ends on the 17^th of March.  Too pervy?  … surely not.

Chris Neels knows how to write a good little play.  I fear I’ve become a bit of a fan girl because I’ve seen each of his plays in the last couple of years…  and I think this is because they’re just a bunch of nice stories.  Nice sounds a cop out word but it’s what they are.  They certainly deal with un-nice topics, such as death and loss and general wear and tear that comes with being in a partnership with Life, but each story makes me leave feeling like I’ve just watched a good film…  A Hollywood one to be sure, but from the good corner of Hollywood, the “500 Days of Summer” corner.

“Hummingbird” is another of these.  Entering into the dark underbelly of The Basement theatre we mount the bleachers and face a stage set with AstroTurf, a ‘domestic’ space disguised with bare wooden cartons and glass pitchers of milk all about the place.  The stage is brilliant.  It’s a perfect theatrical representation of the New Zealand dairy farm and is used wonderfully.

In true Neels fashion, we are introduced to one of our protagonists, Phoeb (Sophie Henderson), yelling at a closed door, in the rain where a literal shower from above drenches her, delighting us in the audience.  This opening scene sets the play up as another somewhat whimsical and entirely enjoyable and unpretentious experience.

Phoeb returns to the family farm as a last resort and  Brian (Barnaby Fredric), her step-sister’s husband (?) sees Pheob as a crazy woman who needs to grieve her husbands death like a normal person and move on.  Henderson’s characterisation of Phoeb is fantastic.  She’s a subdued maniac, a woman who is convinced that her dead, or rather disappeared husband, has returned to her as a hummingbird and is entirely convincing.  Phoeb’s modus operandi is to join her husband in the sky, making wings from his old shirts with the intention to eventually morph into a hummingbird too.  It’s all very romantic.  But the situation of ‘real life on the farm’ (a.k.a. Brian) attempts to bring her swiftly down to earth, though as the story progresses we watch the two eventually develop a mutual friendship and understanding of the nature of the other.

Chelsea McEwan Millar plays Jude, the protective step-sister who is lonely and isolated.  She is simultaneously alcoholic and desperate to become a mother.  McEwan Millar has timing down to a T.  And for that matter so does Henderson.  You know what, this is a show where all the actors are nearly as strong as all the rest. They’re a solid and cohesive unit who work well together and have been perfectly cast.

There were moments of theatre gimmicks that I couldn’t quite place in terms of their role within the story.  For example, throughout the narrative Brian enters the dimly lit stage, torch in hand, gumboots on foot, to simply peer about whilst ominous music accompanies him.  Unless I missed something it’s never revealed what he’s looking at or if he even finds anything in these repeated moments.  At one point pebbles fall from the sky onto him and I have no idea what this served to do, but to be honest, I don’t actually care.  The play as a whole is very strong and a treat. 

I think “Hummingbird” is the sort of theatre that is for the non-theatre goer as well as the regulars.  With live music from Sean Webb, a regular feature in the Neels repertoire, it is easy listening, easy watching, funny and clever, and as a cheap night out, it’s worth more than the money you pay for it. 

Thanks to Mr Neels and co. from FanGirl#1.