Comedy: Urzila Carlson and Tony Woods

Perth International Comedy Festival
Astor Lounge, Mt Lawley
May 13

If you were to roll up the demographics of the comedy festival’s performers into one package, you’d arrive at someone such as Urzila Carlson, the spirited South African, now New Zealander, lesbian mother – there were healthy contingents of each in her audience – whose stand was the second of the mid-week triple-bill in the Astor Lounge.
I couldn’t say that Tony Woods, who played the late spot in the Lounge, ever deviated much from convention. He’s a seriously funny guy, though, in that louche African-American way that’s as irresistible as it’s slick.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Comedy: Frank Woodley and Bob Downe

Perth International Comedy Festival
Astor Theatre, Mt Lawley
Saturday May 10

Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun!
For a combined 50 years, Frank Woodley and Bob Downe have been part of our furniture, and it’s a familiarity that hasn’t bred contempt.
In a double-headed Saturday night at the Astor, in front of two big Comedy Festival audiences, the two veteran comedians showed why.

Comedy: Perth International Comedy Festival Finale

Director Jo Marsh

The Astor Theatre, Mt Lawley

March 20, 2012

Neil Hamburger

After the last laugh of the smash-hit Perth International Comedy Festival ricocheted down Beaufort Street and peace and quiet returned to Mt Lawley, you could imagine the grand old Astor Theatre having a nice cup of tea and a lie down.

The 19-day festival attracted more than 26,000 punters, way above the budgeted break-even point of 16,000 for its inaugural year. The four venues — the Astor, the Mt Lawley Bowling Club, the Velvet Lounge at the Flying Scotsman and the Daily Planet Cafe — operated at above 80 per cent capacity.

It's an impressive achievement by the festival director Jo Marsh, chairman Glenn Connell and his board and the festival's marketing manager Emma Poletti, and marks it, along with this February's rapidly maturing Fringe Festival, as the most significant addition to the Perth performing arts scene in years.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian.

Comedy: Perth International Comedy Festival #3

Hannah Gadsby, Brendon Burns, Bonnie Davies, Andrea Gibbs and Neil Hamburger
The Jack High Room, Mt Lawley Bowling Club
PICF runs until May 20

What do you do when your show runs over? Take it, and the audience, outside! 
Brendon Burns at the Mt Lawley Bowlng Club on Friday night  (pic: Jenna Boston) 

The rampaging Perth International Comedy Festival has created two performance areas, the Jack High Room and the Laughter Locker, at the Mt Lawley Bowling Club, with its bar and lounge between. Unlike the much larger festival venue at the nearby Astor Theatre, you get the chance to hang out, have a few (un-Perthly cheap) drinks and meet the performers.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Comedy: Perth International Comedy Festival #2

The Pajama Men, Des Bishop, Tripod
Astor Theatre, Mt Lawley

PICF runs until May 20

The Astor was under siege. People cramming in and out of the old girl, milling on the sidewalks, clambering down fire escapes and queuing for a hundred metres up Beaufort Street. It was like thousands of really hip looking orcs had descended on some fortress in Gondor looking for man-flesh.

Well they weren’t really orcs (what was I thinking). They were Perth, and what had created this frenzy was the trove of comedy gold that had been hoarded inside the building.

In February, PIAF and the Perth Fringe showed that there’s an enormous hunger in this town for contemporary, quality, accessible entertainment, especially if it’s gathered in precincts where you can hop from show to show. PICF is about to prove the point. 

Comedy: Perth International Comedy Festival #1

Festival director Jo Marsh
Yon, DeAnne Smith, Asher Treleaven
PICF runs until May 20
at venues around Mt Lawley


PICF director Jo Marsh was doing a fine job of looking both exhausted and elated in the foyer of the Astor on night two of her festival. "We sold a thousand tickets today", she told me, "and we've got sell-outs happening all over the place!".
Good on her and crew. It's scary enough mounting an exercise like this (140 performances by 40 acts over 19 days), but when you're doing it with almost no funding support (hats off to the City of Stirling, though) and mostly in-kind sponsorship, and when your genesis was clouded by some internecine brouhaha in local comedy circles, it can be a sphincter-tightening exercise.

Asher Treleaven

I think Jo can relax a bit (maybe that's not a perfectly-placed phrase). As the PIAF/Fringe extravaganza showed in February, there's an enormous hunger in this town for contemporary, quality, accessible entertainment,  especially in precincts where you can hop from show to show, grab a drink or two along the way and mingle with hip people. There's money out there, and if Perth is given alternatives to spending it all on $45 main courses and $12 drinks, they'll take it in droves, and do it all year.
Turnstiles is going to be doing plenty of droving at PICF over the next fortnight or so, 23 shows in all, and we'll report back to you with micro-reviews and other news as we go.
So let's get cracking!