Awesome!!
Awesome!! sees Mark Williamson (aka The MW Oh Show) make his first appearance at the Melbourne Fringe. He has taken a brief break from running the Comedy On The Edge room in Sydney to pop down for a short run of shows that meander through pop culture and life in general.
From the outset Mark stated that the show would have a very relaxed, casual vibe. It was so cruisey that his material seemed to lack the traditional structure of jokes and punchlines at times. Even though he referred to them as jokes they were in fact short segments of stories that were amusing but not necessarily laugh out loud hilarious. There wasn’t much in the way of a common thread amongst the topics that he covered, they were an assorted collection of thoughts from his mind.
Mark employed a unique structure to the show that suited the randomness of the material. On stage he displayed words or phrases relating to topics of which audience members were invited to select, like a cross between a band set list and DVD Menu. Some dummy items were thrown in as cute self affirming and congratulatory statements for Mark. This was an interesting concept that certainly would help a performer from getting bored doing the same set gig after gig.
Adding to the DVD feel was a segment in which he displayed a list of “Deleted scenes” consisting of jokes he had cut from his set. Although we got a taste of only a couple of them, they seemed to gently nudge boundaries of taste and mention people who may not have appreciated the joke. I found them to be as good as, if not funnier than, the core material!
There were some clever moments where Mark interacted with his sound guy who responded with some amusing comments that threatened to steal Mark’s thunder. He played the part of Mark’s downtrodden lackey perfectly by setting himself up for comments that put him back in his place as a hired hand.
Audience interaction played a large part of the show, especially with the given the format. He regularly asked gentle questions of the crowd about topics he covered with some of the answers providing some amusing asides. Unfortunately a lot of them didn’t lead to anything interesting, apparently just a token gesture to keep the audience part of the conversation. Nevertheless punters were happy to play along considering the bribery of lollies as well as Mark’s friendly and warm stage demeanour.
Although it wasn't a show of constant hilarity, Awesome!! was a pleasant way to spend an hour.Visit the Fringe Website for booking details.