By Jennifer Beasley
Comedy Showcase featuring: Dave O’Neil, Geraldine Quinn, Brad Oakes and Billy Stiles.
This was my first time visiting this cute 167 seat theatre. Supported by the Kingston Council, the Shirley Burke Theatre increases the profile of our creative artists and supports not just cultural diversity and performers but also allows the surrounding businesses to benefit from the increased patronage to the area. This ensures that community engagement at events for our emerging and developed artists justifies Melbourne’s title as the Theatre Capitol of Australia.
After a fabulous authentic Greek meal at Limo’s around the corner from the theatre, my companion and I took our seats. The venue was packed. Our host, Brad (who names a child Bradford?) Oakes did an amazing job of warming up the crowd. Affable and charming, the jokes fly thick and fast as our rotund veteran comic regales us with a smooth set, easily capturing the audience’s attention. Any latecomers were fodder to his laser barbs; ‘you came late but still had time to grab a drink?’, before launching into a joke. All the ribbing was done with good humour, and his comedic style light and breezy. Monologues, one-liners and ad libbing all displayed Oakes’s skill as a host. We were still laughing as he introduced the next comedian, Billy Stiles, a well prepped audience ready to continue our joke-fest.
Billy Stiles is a rising star. Scratch that-he is a star. With previous sold-out performances at last year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival, I discovered at this event what all the fuss was about. As one of six kids growing up, his anecdotes of his family and his childhood had the crowd rocking with laughter. In particular, the culmination of events that led to a television appearance on Family Feud, both endeared the audience to the gentle Stiles, and at the same time gave us permission to enjoy the hilarious outcome. For more on his understated humour, look Stiles up on YouTube (Kid Identifies As a Cat). Then our next comedian blasted on stage.
She’s got red hair, neon pink gloves and a mighty voice- the musical talents that is Geraldine Quinn blew in like a butterfly that had overdosed on spray paints. A regular on Spicks & Specks (which I found out is not on a streamer but on TV. Like, normal TV! Amazing!) Quinn sings, performs her own outrageous choreography and takes the mickey out of musical theatre. Channelling what I might guess was the character Tracy Turnblad from Hairspray, Quinn did a superb Midwestern American accent, launching into her own version of a musical theatre song. From her repertoire of songs ranging from ‘Little Choir’ to ‘Three Train Lines’, Quinn’s high energy act set our toes a-tapping and our funny bones a-laughing. I’m such a sucker for musical theatre, even more so with anything that likes to make fun of it, that I’m listening to Quinn’s Spotify list as I write this.
After a quick break from that dynamic performance, Oates returned to introduce the stellar Dave O’Neil. Another reoccurring guest on Spicks & Specks, O’Neil is a comedy juggernaut, a never-ceasing volley of rapid wit, smooth one-liners and self-depreciating humour as O’Neil engaged the poor sods, I mean the audience, seated in the front row, and gently ribbed them, to the great amusement of all. O’Neil managed to poke fun yet maintained a friendly support of these participants, extracting information such as their location (Hampton, City and Preston), jobs (lawyer, shop owner and Urologist) and weave throughout this investigation his own issues and musings on general life. And that is the secret to O’Neil’s charm. The audience can feel his genuine interest in people, because that is the stuff of life. It is, after all, what makes a good comedian great, or why a writer writes. We all want to hear the stories, and as a storyteller, O’Neil has perfected his art to polished perfection.
As with any great set, the performance went overtime. Oates had a hard time getting O’Neil to get offstage, and we, the audience, lapped up every bit of it. It was a true privilege to be offered to see this Showcase, and I would encourage everyone reading this to support these fabulous artists whenever possible.
Melbourne Comedy Showcase played one night at the Shirley Burke Theatre, October 25th.
