The Kiwi Stand-Up Experience
Mark Scott and Mike Loder have appeared in over a dozen fringe festivals this year before coming to San Francisco. Their format is simple—taking turns to deliver half an hour of stand-up each—but it works well. A few of their opening night jokes, based on their touring experiences in Australia and Canada, were a little lost on the audience—apart from the Australian with Canadian in-laws laughing alone in the third row—so you may not hear the ones about curling and funnel-web spiders during the rest of their run. But they're skilled comics, knowing when to ditch a gag and move on to the next, and when they hit a good one they had the audience right behind them. A few interjections were skillfully parried in the nicest possible way; Mike and Mark were, above all else, bloody good company for an hour.
My personal highlights were Mike Loder's impression of a shark phoning an airline with suggestions for inflight safety equipment, and Mark Scott's references to the 'deadly sharks, gnashing of teeth' in Australian waters. I notice that both of these highlights involve sharks, which is not a complete representation of the show (more a representation of yours truly); for the more sensitive among us, there were also some fine gags about kittens, and the house-redecorating applications thereof. Scott's tribute song about JFK Jr. was a hit, and he even got the crowd singing along with the follow-up about Di and Dodi.
All in all, these Kiwis are well worth your time. And remember, eight of your strong American dollars are enough to feed and clothe a comedian for a week in our Antipodean part of the world, so give generously.
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2000 First published in Funny Ha Ha, 8 September 2000. |
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