Fourplay
After taking their package show to the peeple of Adelaide and Brisbane, Fourplay have come to Melbourne. Featuring four examples of Brisbane stand up talent, this show is structured into halves. The first has three of the cast performing short 10-15 minute sets while the second half is composed of an extended set by the fourth comic.
The first performer was Darren Brinkworth whose short spot was full of wonderful wordplay and puns. His use of the literal definitions of words and phrases provided plenty of laughs as well as a few groaners. The structure was that of short stories into which he weaved his linguistic magic. A delightful left of centre viewpoint gave the material a brilliant naivity despite a few journeys to unPC territory.
Mike Shanahan employed a similar use of wordplay but delivered it in an entirely different context. While Darren delivered his material in a garden variety manner, Mike adopted an “Elliot Goblet” pose with very little colour and movement. He stood at the microphone, rarely moved and spoke in an almost monotone. We only saw some comical eye movement when a line fell flat. For most of his set, his jokes were told as rapid fire one liners of the “Do you reckon…” variety. He would execute long runs of these lines which occasionally became an endurance test for the audience due to their relentlessness. The set was full of laughs and his stage persona was entrancing to watch.
The female on the bill was Vera Mackney who had a touch of the bogan to her with tales of drugs, blue collar work and a long suffering husband. She had a chatty, slightly rambling manner to her delivery and a cynical view of the world that she milked for all it’s humour.
After the short interval Steven J Whiteley hit the stage. The majority of his set concerned relationships, the differences between men and women, and sex. These were all handled with enthusiasm, given his personal spin in their presentation and employed plenty of miming to drive the laughs home. He concluded his set with some songs played on guitar including a couple of attempts at an improvised number. After complaining about the lousy suggestions put forth by the punters, these off the cuff numbers were rather abrupt and merely mentioned the offered words in passing rather than extracting laughs from them. His prepared songs on the other hand were to the point and contained enough twists, albeit somewhat predictable at times, to keep us laughing.
Fourplay was a wonderful package show that featured four talented performers. Each had solid sets and I would be interested in seeing what they come up with in the future.
Visit the Fringe Website for booking details.