Buzzcuts - arts reviews
Since 1997 Buzzcuts has been training young writers and broadcasters in critical arts reviewing. Having just finished up at the Perth Fringe World Festival, the next stop for Buzzcuts is Adelaide for the Adelaide Fringe Festival from February 24. Read the latest reviews right here!
La Soirée
Gabriella McVeigh
Mar 21, 2012
Read morePresented by La Soirée Australia @ Idolize Spiegeltent - The Garden of Unearthly Delights SATURDAY 17 March
Roll up! Roll up! The circus is in town! Well, sort of. La Soirée is circus meets burlesque and everything in between. Featuring the stars of La Clique in a pick 'n mix fashion you can never be sure what to expect. La Soirée is ever changing from night to night but always brilliant. Performed the world over, the show has been given the renowned Idolize Spiegeltent for the Adelaide Fringe and I can’t imagine seeing it anywhere else. On the last Saturday of the Fringe the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations raged outside The Garden of Unearthly Delights and so, decked out in green I pushed past them and through the gates to join the line snaking out next to the tent. From this point onwards I knew La Soirée was going to be a good show. La Soirée is an extremely attractive performance, cast, staff and tent all included. With crushed velvet jackets and smiles from the doorman, Lachy, we were given a helping hand to find seats by a lovely lady in fifties style black attire. Ushered in a few rows back from the stage I peered around to see a packed room, the walls covered in mirrors and intricate framework, while in the centre rested a small and circular red stage. The lights dimmed, the William Tell Overture began to play and onto the sage our host for the night burst forth! Dramatic music? Check. Pin Stripe suit? Check. Megaphone voice? Check. It looked like we were set for our nostalgic trip into a time lost to previous generations, as we were asked to “MAKE SOME NOISE!”. From the depths of the shadows emerged Le Gateau Chocolat singing soft baritones building around the dramatic music. Le Gateau Chocolat moved onto the stage to reveal an outfit unparalleled by any other; golden frills consuming the space on stage and the night of entertainment officially began. A tough act to follow, one would think, but it soon became apparent that each act was just as difficult to follow as the next. In showers of glitter and splashes of water the acts performed in quick succession to an almost constant sound of applause. Somewhere between gasping at the acrobatic skills of The English Gents and covering my mouth with my hand in shock at the flexibility of Captain Frodo I began having to hold back on yelling out. The show was not all trained acrobatics, however, with modern music and comedic acts such a Mario, Queen of the Circus and Canadian born Mooky. Moving away from the more traditional circus skills Mooky and Mario had the audience almost crying with laughter. However a word of warning for this show; although there were younger faces in the crowd, swearing and some nudity flitted in and out, intermingled with audience participation from the first few rows that gave new meaning to the term ‘personal boundaries’. Eventually, after the short intermission, my notes became almost incomprehensible as I feared to take my eyes away from the stage. For our host to say it was “Not a sit back and fold your arms show!”, was rather an understatement and in the end received a standing ovation from all members of the audience as well as a charming rendition of We are the champions by Queen. The Fringe may have ended for this year but La Soirée certainly hasn’t, taking out the Bank SA Pick of the Fringe Award this year. We can only hope they will return next year and who knows what new and brilliant acts they will have picked up by then‽ La Soirée is shocking, inspiring and encourages you to follow even your wildest dreams! So be sure to look out for one if not all of the acts next year and witness the spectacle that is, La Soirée!
The Three Minute Project
Catherine Hoffman
Mar 20, 2012
Read morePresented by Genevieve Brandenburg @ Mercury Cinema FRIDAY 16 March (two shows only)
Four hours. And an interval on top of that. This thing is long. When I mentioned to my housemate that the Fringe website said The Three Minute Project would go for approximately 240 minutes, we figured there must have been an error. “If it’s really four hours long it better be fucking brilliant,” were his words. Well, director Genevieve Brandenburg eludes genius in her project, but overall it’s not an unenjoyable evening’s outing, despite the length. The concept of The Three Minute Project is taken from Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests. Warhol took potential 1960s stars and filmed them silently, in black and white, as a kind of alternate portrait. Local artist Genevieve Brandenburg first saw this series when she was in high school. After graduating in 2010, Brandenburg was exposed to a number of people who she felt were interesting, talented and creative individuals and she decided that these people were worthy of something like Warhol’s portraits. Brandenburg spoke to her audience before screening The Three Minute Project. She spoke eloquently and earnestly about the reasons she felt compelled to create this work of art and what she hoped it would reveal about the people involved as well as about the nature of human beings. It is Brandenburg’s professed belief that you can “never truly know a person because everyone is immensely deep”: she expressed a hope that her film would reveal this, along with standing as a celebration of the individuality and creativity of humans in general. It is a lofty ambition and one that is probably only partially achieved. In order to achieve her goals, Brandenburg worked with a similar concept to Warhol’s Screen Tests. 221 people were told to sit alone in front of a camera for three minutes but were not informed of much else. There are differences to Warhol’s work – for example, Brandenburg and cameraman Sam Young work in colour and with sound. This quite drastically alters the feel of the portraits created, although not necessarily in a bad way: the feeling they create is very different and as such is seems unfair to compare the results. The Reading Room serves as the backdrop for Bradenburg’s subjects, almost every one being given a floral chair to sit in, set against a blank wall. Although filmed over several months, this chair and the blank wall remain the same with only one exception. There is also a consistent buzz of noise from another room. Watching the reactions of subjects put in front of the camera is entertaining, for the most part. While many did the Warholian thing and were silent, staring either at or away from the camera, there were a larger number who talked. Those who did seemed to use the word ‘awkward’ a lot, which is understandable. Some attempted humour, others chose to communicate in song or through the quotes of some literary idol, some told stories and some attempted to say something deep and meaningful (that usually came off simply sounding pretentious or naive). It was interesting that those who spoke tended to fall into two categories. Firstly and more commonly, there were those who seemed to be wanting to put on a show. Sometimes this was through jokes (the guy with the whale joke and the one with hand puppets each deserve a mention) but for the most part it seemed that people were performing a kind of character. Those who did not fall into that category seemed to see the camera as a kind of confessional to vent or to reveal something of themselves. Both say a lot about what these subjects might be like as people. The subjects Brandenburg has gathered for The Three Minute Project were meant to cover a wide variety of walks of life: workers and artists, young and old, friends and strangers were apparently involved. While there are a few exceptions (mostly older family members, by the look of things) most of those put in front of the camera appear to be between the age of sixteen and twenty-six and, although their piercings and hair colours may alter, the majority of them seem decidedly middle class. That said, it doesn’t make the subjects less fascinating. What Brandenburg has created is an interesting record of Adelaide’s young, ‘alternative' (and I use that word very loosely) crowd: a collection of portraits of a specific time and place. The show dragged at times, but overall those four hours went much more quickly than I had expected them to.
Poetry is the Real Winner
Buzzcuts Canberra
Mar 20, 2012
Read more- By Amy Birchall In the ordinary world, poetry isn’t the real winner. My poetry lecturer frequently laments the fact that Tim Winton outsells him 500 to one, and most aspiring poets would find it difficult to convince their neighbours to switch off the television and listen to a spoken word performance instead. Most aspiring poets’ neighbours don’t know what they’re missing. The final event of Canberra’s You Are Here festival brought together the capital’s finest spoken word poets for an afternoon to prove that yes, poetry can be the real winner. Poetry slams aren’t a more cultured version of the rap battles in movies like 8 Mile, as some (me) may have been anticipating. They’re poetry readings, but with more attitude than the ones you encountered in high school. At Poetry Is The Real Winner (the brainchild of slam poetry family patriarchs Andrew Galan from BAD! SLAM! NO! BISCUIT! and Julian Fleetwood from Traverse Poetry) the audience was treated to poems about the city of Cocksville, sex with Lego and talking breakfasts. Raphael was the star of the afternoon. His poems had depth that defied his youthful appearance, including a haunting but brilliant poem about the night that Canberra burnt down and “we didn’t notice because we were in the Phoenix reading poetry”. There is nothing like hearing about the silver goon bag in Garema Place shaking off its blanket of homeless people and soaring into to the sky while those odd metal sheep statues outside the Canberra Centre Subway come to life. The audience loved Malcolm’s piece about poets and authors in a mock-horse race, read in horse racing commentary style. He also performed a very sweet, longing poem about the class divide in Canberra and sneaking glances at upper class women on Murray’s buses. The lack of female performers was a little disappointing. Surely there are more lady performance poets in the nation’s capital than the sole female poet, Ali McGregor? Her poems, particularly her piece on why solace trumps hope, were strong and heartfelt, but it would have been lovely to see some more girls on stage too. It was heartening to see that poetry can exist (and thrive, judging by the packed Phoenix bar) outside of classrooms and musty textbooks. It’s events like these that will help your bogan neighbours to come around to the idea that poetry can be the real winner, as long as they’re back in their lounge room before Home and Away starts.
MALL STORIES: An interview with curator Julian Fleetwood
Buzzcuts Canberra
Mar 19, 2012
Read more- By Lauren Strickland Julian Fleetwood is a Canberra writer, slam poet, and Choose-Your-Own-Adventure enthusiast. He is also the curator of Mall Stories, one of the many eclectic events offered by 2012's YOU ARE HERE festival. The surreal walking tour will lead you to various locations scattered around the Canberra Centre, prompting you to look at the mall with new eyes and contemplate your own mall experiences. Mall Stories is an interesting combination of tales: first jobs, first loves, mall meltdowns, and even a curious narrative from the perspective of a shop-window mannequin. I ask Julian where the idea for Mall Stories started. “I've kind been working it out as I went along – what made me do it, what was interesting. There was a postmodernist class I did in uni where we did a walk around the CBD and went into the mall, and talked about the mall as an interesting artefact of the 20th century. There are funny things you notice about malls. Things that give the appearance of a history and an age; it's like an artificial Victoriana. They don't have clocks and the exits are hard to find so that people will get trapped in a mall but they'll still be encouraged to circulate so they'll be continually moving. That's a really interesting phenomenon.” The walking tour format of Mall Stories was a natural step for Julian. “Whenever I go to a new city I'll find a walking tour and do it.” We talk about the blue plaques used to commemorate significant cultural landmarks in the UK. “Because Canberra's a relatively young city there's not so much of that, so then I started thinking – what are significant places in cities? In a new city it's more about individual experiences rather than historic, big events. I started thinking why don't we do a tour, and get people to talk about why a place is important for them.” Mall Stories is largely narrated from young adult perspectives: teenagers with their first jobs, stoner kids getting high in bathrooms. Julian expected this to happen. “It kind of occurred naturally. I knew there would be stuff about young kids in malls.” There is a dichotomy, he says, between malls as big, horrible places that take over local independent culture, and as places where people get their first taste of independence. “All those experiences about going to the movies and making out, or having a job and finally having money. All those sorts of things come with malls.” While he hints at the possibility of future walking tours, for the moment Julian is focussing on a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story inspired by a Brighton zine. ZOMBIE ATTACK IN BRIGHTON had walking-tour elements, but let the reader be the determining factor in the story's outcome. Julian is bringing his own take on this to the capital. “Mine's a live version,” he grins. “We have giant inflatable dice.” Canberrans will have the opportunity to experience Julian's life-size zombie-apocalypse board game at this year’s National Folk Festival, though he hopes to introduce it to his slam poetry routine as well. “It's kind of stretching it to call it poetry! But I might do it.” Mall Stories will continue to be available through the YOU ARE HERE website: youareherecanberra.com.au
Don’ts for Dancers
Buzzcuts Canberra
Mar 19, 2012
Read more- By Kaylia Payne Hey you. Yes, you. Dancing in the corner, thinking that you’re oh so cool. Bright lights flashing, music pounding, body shaking and undulating. You should be ashamed of yourself. You are breaking the stringent rules of dance. Have you even offered your palm face-up to the partner you’re currently gyrating against? Have you even offered your palm?! Shame on you. Luckily for you, the group behind ‘Don’ts For Dancers’ don’t mind. In fact, they’re quite the rules breakers themselves. I would go so far as to say that they went out of their way to break every single rule in the book. And by book, I mean a literal book. The text ‘Don’ts for Dancers’ is a look at the social etiquette of dance in the 1920s, including advice such as, “Don't dance with bent knees. Bent knees suggest an ancient cab-horse on its last pathetic stagger or a performing chimpanzee gyrating around its keeper”. It is both informative and hilarious. Nerida Matthael and Nicole Canham saw it the same way, and so the production ‘Don’ts for Dancers’ was born. It began with a literal interpretation of the text, with a dancer pulling an audience member out for a demonstration. “Don’t speak; don’t stretch out your left arm like a pump handle,” she snapped and scolded, pulling him around the room and throwing him into the strangest positions, leaving us in stitches. “This is so fun!”, my friend whispered to me. And she was right. It was fun. In fact, that one syllable sums up the entire show perfectly. It wasn’t trying to wow us with how deep it was. It wasn’t trying to shove a message down our throats under the guise of pretty costumes and amazing legs. It wasn’t trying to get us to re-evaluate our lives and change our perspective of the world. Instead it just was. And everyone had a great time. The dancers had loads of talent, great comedic timing, and there was plenty of audience interaction - including pulling people out of their seats to dance with them during intermission. That was both a positive and a negative for me. I was terrified of being pulled out the crowd myself, and I can imagine other socially awkward people would have felt the same. But seeing other people take part definitely added to the enjoyment of the production. All in all, it was the perfect ending to my small part in the You Are Here festival (which involved judging other people’s work in lieu of doing any of my own). A lot of events I have seen were trying too hard to show how artistic they are, resulting in a pretentious atmosphere that detracted from the event and artists involved. Sometimes you just need to turn the music up, put on your dancing shoes, and simply have fun.
The Landlords
Buzzcuts Canberra
Mar 19, 2012
Read more- By Amelia Bidgood I’m not a highly religious individual, luckily - if I was I would have walked away from the pub theatre performance by ‘The Landlords’, feeling extremely offended. The two men that took to the stage were dressed in matching white coats, ties, black pants and thick black framed glasses and referred to themselves as Professor Pritchard and Doctor Arthur Downwards who claimed they were going to teach the audience a lesson in religion through a series of modules, i.e. a mockery of numerous religions, matched with corny jokes, song and dance, dodgy props and a series of pictures in the format of slides to accompany their witty show. My understanding of different religions is quite minimal. I’d refer to myself as a free-spirited type, however not quite an atheist. If my knowledge of each religion was a little more extensive then I’m sure I would have been able to see more of the humour in this “comprehensive, life-changing lecture”, as referred to by the two mad scientists on stage. However, I did enjoy a laugh or two throughout the performance, mostly due to the fact these guys were passionate, confident, entertaining and played their parts well. The venue was a cosy location that finally made me feel like I was part of the You Are Here festival. Unfortunately, people kept on piling in and the venue soon became cramped and due to the extremely tall man and various others standing in front of the seated areas I was only able to see one of the performers for the entirety of the show. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one left feeling slightly outraged by this. From referring to the morbidly obese man (Buddha), linking John Travolta with Scientology, sharing the importance of fortune cookies and an entertaining dance ensemble named ‘The Jew Shake’, The Landlords pulled out all the stops. Just as the performance seemed to be dragging, they ended with a bang and the majority of the audience let out cheery shouts as the duo left the stage. If you are a strictly religious person with set beliefs, please hear the warning alarms ringing and stay away from this show. If you have absolutely no idea of any religious concepts you’ll more than likely sit there scratching your head, so again this one is possibly not for you. But, if you have an understanding of various religions, a sarcastic sense of humour, and don’t take life too seriously than you’ll only be disappointed if you miss The Landlords in action. It wasn’t really my cup of tea, but as they say, you never know if you never go.
Where Do We Go From You Are Here?
Buzzcuts Canberra
Mar 19, 2012
Read more- By Ashley Orr On the second last day of the You Are Here festival, Scissors Paper Pen’s Rosanna Stevens expertly chaired a panel of the YAH directors, Yolande Norris, Adam Hadley and David Finnigan, to discuss the festival’s past, present and future. When broached the question of just how different YAH 2012 was from YAH 2011, David noted one great advantage: time. The 2011 festival was put together in a mere 100 days, while this year the lead-up of 6 months proved invaluable. YAH 2012 also benefitted from a greater variety of art forms and, as Yolande pointed out, a greater public awareness of what YAH has to offer. This awareness is, in part, due to the directors’ commitment to maintain an active presence in social media whilst also manning ‘The Newsroom’ which acted as the festival’s hub and an impromptu event space. Though all three directors emphasised the importance of appealing to a variety of audiences, Yolande noted the local media’s tendency to attach words like “alternative”, “underground”, “youth” and “emerging” to YAH. At best, this label-fest does little to describe the festival in any meaningful way. At worst, it deters audiences who don’t see themselves as part of these narrow categories. For Hadley, the need for balance between giving the festival context whilst appealing to diverse audiences is an ongoing issue for YAH. The panel’s audience was also given a chance to broadcast their views about YAH. In evident nostalgia for the festival’s end, some wanted YAH’s successful Facebook page to remain active in continuing to promote artists after the festival’s close. Others suggested artist-led workshops be incorporated into next year’s program, just as the panel discussions made their debut in YAH 2012. Perhaps the most contested question was one posed by David to the audience concerning the place of interstate artists in YAH. Opinions were divided between making YAH an exclusively Canberra artist festival and one with a greater interstate presence, while still more opted for a comparative middle ground, as they hoped for collaboration between Canberra artists and the world “out there”. I think Yolande summed it up best when she said that interstate artists shouldn’t be those of the fly-in, fly-out variety, but should stay more than two hours and give something back to Canberra. In other words, YAH welcomes all, as long as you’re willing to stay with us for the ride.
Even If We’re The Last Two People On Earth
Michael Hannan
Mar 19, 2012
Read morePresented by Jack Atherton and the Saddlebags Motion Picture Company of Massachusetts @ Director's Hotel SATURDAY 17 March
Billed as a ‘new, surreal, post-apocalyptic-romantic-black-tragi-comedy,’ Even If We’re The Last Two People On Earth centres around Lewis Sargent (Will Cox) and Emily Price (Molly McCormack), a pair of nineteen-year-old survivors who find themselves thrown together after the rest of the human race is wiped out by the apocalypse of December 21, 2012. Written and directed by Jack Atherton, the story follows the duo’s progress as they travel through the remains of society, their feelings for each other growing as they come to terms with everything they’ve lost. Along for the ride is Isabel Meow (Monica Guilhaus), an unhinged exotic dancer picked up in a strip club along the way. The main problem with this show is the script. It isn’t without redeeming value –occasionally there are sharply-written lines which provide momentary comic relief – but on the whole it feels too long-winded, leading to the show exceeding the advertised time of 60 minutes by nearly half an hour. A fourth character, in the form of the Ghost of Post-Traumatic Stress (Matt Williams) breezes on and off stage at random intervals, rattling off lines with little to no explanation about who (or what) he actually is. Little background is given on the nature of the apocalypse itself, or how and why it happened. While this ambiguity initially provides a backdrop to the characters’ development – one of Lewis and Emily’s first real discussions highlights their conflicting theories over what’s actually happened to them – over time the lack of clarification starts to feel like a cop-out on the writer’s part. Perhaps the greatest difficulty of all is that the narrative between Lewis and Emily doesn’t often connect with the reality of the apocalypse happening around them. In a post-apocalyptic world where food, water and survival of the fittest on a day-by-day basis are paramount, the two characters’ obsession with their own relationship – love, sex, and marriage (is that last even possible in a post-apocalyptic world?) – feels disjointed and unrealistic. The acting is similarly patchy. Guilhaus delivers the strongest and most memorable performance of the show with her portrayal of a deranged stripper, although the non-stop wackiness does grate over time and, more dangerously, begins to overshadow the central love story between Lewis and Emily in the second half of the play. Lewis has some of the best individual lines in the show – his prayer to a ‘genocidal, megalomaniacal Lord’ is great – but Cox’s tendency to whine his lines really lets his character down. Price’s emotive performance as Emily is perhaps the most consistent of the three leads, although one could argue that her often-complaining character is the least sympathetic of the three. I had high hopes of Even If We’re The Last Two People On Earth, and while I really tried to enjoy it, in the end I just couldn’t do it. As a hard-core fan of apocalyptic novels and films, I was eager to see how a piece of theatre in that same genre would work performed onstage. That I came out of the performance feeling let down really says it all.
Cinderella – The Untold Story
Amelia Pinna
Mar 19, 2012
Read morePresented by SA Children's Ballet Company Inc. @ Adelaide College of the Arts - Main Theatre SATURDAY 17 March (until March 18)
Presented by the South Australian Children’s Ballet Company, Cinderella – The Untold Story is a zany adaptation of the classic fairytale, with a modern twist. Inspired by Roald Dahl’s satirical story from his collection of Revolting Rhymes, this fractured fairytale follows Cinderella, a meek and dreamy girl who is bullied relentlessly by her two hideous stepsisters. When the Prince hosts a Royal Ball, all the ladies of the kingdom rush to attend, and with the help of seven clever rats and a Fairy Godmother, so too does Cinderella. But will the Prince prove to be everything Cinderella hopes for? Will they live happily ever after? The production incorporates both dance and theatre, featuring young dancers – between the ages of 10 and 19 – selected from various ballet schools throughout Adelaide. It is choreographed by internationally renowned Csaba Buday, and directed by Beverley Waters, who has worked on a number of performances for the SA Children’s Ballet Company, including The Red Shoes, Clara’s Arctic Dream and Aladdin and the Genie of Unlimited Wishes. Cinderella – The Untold Story is creative and fun, with a combination of dancing, acting and witty narration. The audience consisted mainly of young children and their parents – the younger members particularly connecting to the upbeat music, colourful costumes and great energy of the performers. The addition of several fairytale favourites including Snow White, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Jack and Jill, Puss in Boots and Little Red Riding Hood, also added to the fun. Both the plot and costumes were given a modern spin. The Prince was dressed in sunglasses and skate-shoes, the ugly stepsisters in fluoro tutus and ribbons, and Goldilocks was almost unrecognisable, looking like a 1930s showgirl. While this related to a modern audience, it seemed slightly kitsch, diminishing the fairytale charm. The performance was vibrant and entertaining, but lacked the polish one might expect to see from the state’s Ballet Company, even its youth branch. Admittedly, many dancers were under 15 so this can be forgiven; but nevertheless, I expected the standard to be more sophisticated. For many of the roles, there was not a lot of dancing at all – the Prince and the ugly stepsisters seemed, for the most part, to just stomp around the stage. Having said this, Puss in Boots was, technically, very good, and the pas de deux between Cinderella and her true love was delightful – possibly saving the show. It was utterly refreshing to finally see some quality classical dancing. Goldilocks’ Broadway-inspired dancing was also noteworthy, as were the ugly stepsisters, who were very amusing and dynamic, despite being given limited dancing roles. At the end of the show, the children from the audience were welcomed on stage to meet the dancers. They were clearly delighted to approach their favourite character and have a photo taken with them. Overall, Cinderella – The Untold Story was imaginative, visually appealing and full of energy. I was a little disappointed with the standard of dancing; however, judging by the reactions of children in the audience, they thoroughly enjoyed the performance.
Peter Berner in How to Succeed with Imperfect Teeth
Thomas Sarre
Mar 18, 2012
Read morePresented by More+Comedy @ The Comedy Cellar FRIDAY 16 March (until March 17)
“I’m 49.” Again and again Peter Berner mentions his age, making sure the fact was nailed into our minds. He tells us that he’s not completely past it yet, but he can’t wait for old age before engaging in the sort of unforgiving honesty that old people can get away with. His show is all about honesty. He’s honest about himself and his anal bleeding. He’s honest about what he thinks of various countries and their figureheads. He’s honest about thoughts that we all have but don’t dare to express. One of those is “we don’t need everyone”; walking the streets of Adelaide, he says, are many people for whom he can’t see the point. Disguised as jokes, he throws us truths and opinions that perhaps only a jaded 49-year-old would fully notice or express. One of his items is about what he calls the compassion pie. He talks about all the terrible events happening in the world for which we are supposed to show compassion. But compassion, he says, is a finite resource. He’s right, we’re constantly bombarded by causes and charities and problems, and we seem to care about each new one a little less. It’s a thought that is probably in many people’s minds, just not fully realized. His show is full of these things, little truths that he has worked into joke form. I found him more interesting than funny, although I still laughed. I went to the show with my dad, who is 48, and he laughed his pants off. Peter’s humour is appreciated more by an older crowd, perhaps. But it was a great show. Peter Berner isn’t one of those comedians who spend a year writing their shows. For example, he worked Kony 2012 into his act, a phenomenon only a week or so old. He talked about the recent leadership ballot between Rudd and Gillard. His is a dry wit, with his jaded persona and intelligent take on contemporary events. He reinforced his jokes with a shitload of cursewords (ha) but didn’t come off like Wil Anderson, whose punch lines are often based around swearing. It was at the Comedy Cellar, which is a pretty classic standup bar. The atmosphere was great, and it was a perfect setting for Berner. His act doesn’t really involve audience interaction, and the stage’s separation from the audience worked well for him. Peter Berner is a very smart funny-man. You can catch him in various media outlets in small doses, but if the chance to see him for a whole hour comes up, take the opportunity. We may not need everyone, but we definitely need Peter Berner.
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