From viewing the Comedy Festival schedule, coupled with my firsthand field research, I have ascertained two things: 1) Monday is a relatively quiet night, with lots of jokesters taking the night off. 2) Those who push on with a Monday night set use it as an opportunity to a) tune up or road test jokes, or b) kind of half arse it.
Convoluted numbering system aside, 12 minutes of sputtering jokes from Greg Fleet and I get the sense that I’m in for a long show. Not temporally long of course – MICF runs a tight ship and you’re basically broomed out the door in under an hour. But Fleet’s regularly razor sharp mix of the acerbic and absurd is replaced tonight with stories sans punchlines, and at times they just drift off into the void.
The tales lacking a gutbusting laugh seem salvageable, but even Fleet recognizes the ones that should be thrown in a bag and tossed in the river. A disappointing performance, and hopefully not one representative of what Fleet – one of Australia’s more consistently great comedians – is dishing out at this year’s festival.
BY MITCH ALEXANDER
