I started the day yesterday with Bob and Jim at the Udderbelly Pasture.
Sometimes a show can be really badly affected by the time it's on and Bob and Jim's show "Go" is a perfect example of this.
The pair are a quintessentially British double act who cheerfully deliver their material which is well rehearsed and they have a good connection with each other.
Unfortunately, they don't really have much else to offer.
The show's time, location, marketing colour scheme, the mannerisms of the comics and it's general sense of humour make it the perfect show for kids - or so you would think, but there is just enough swearing and jokes that point towards sex etc that make it inappropriate for kids under the age of 10-12.
It most certainly could work with a drunk audience - I've seen many spoof kids entertainers do childish stuff on stage and the drunken audience have got involved and lapped it up.
But you don't have many drunks around at 12.20pm, so the audience is going to be made up of people who have just eaten breakfast and are seeing their first show of the day and on the day I saw it (yesterday) they never really won the audience around despite their relatively high energy and I'm struggling to imagine how they will do it for the rest of the run. (The general murmurs of the other people leaving indicated that they felt the same way as me about the show).
If they had marketed their show to kids and cut out the swearing I could see them being successful, or if they had found a different time slot I could see them making a success of things.
They are definitely not a one star show and I've marked them up for effort and potential, but at that time slot, in that venue, I'm afraid I can't recommend that you see them.
Show info here.
Friday, 3 August 2012
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
What an astonishingly misdirected, illiterate blog! I stumbled upon this dreck looking for reviews of Bob & Jim, whom I saw at Udderbelly yesterday and thought were superb, a real class act. I'm sure we saw the same show, it's just that you're trying to take all the joy out of it by giving them career advice (to suggest they transform into a kids act is completely missing the point of their comedy and - I'm sorry to tell you - comedy in general) and marketing tips (I would suggest you stick to reviewing comedy but I can't). Please Colin, it's wannabe, two-bit "review" bloggers like yourself that do a real disservice to hard-working comedy performers by publishing infantile unqualified reviews that show up on search engine results alongside genuine, experienced professionals. Leave it to them. The best support you can show is in person, not in the written word.
With all due respect, if you saw them yesterday and I saw them at the start of the month then we definitely saw two different shows.
I post honest reviews based on what I see and on that day, I can assure you, they were not on their game at all when I was there and if I missed the point of their comedy, I wasn't the only one - I heard at least three people muttering similar thoughts on the way out.
If they have turned their show round in the last two weeks I am very pleased for them and if that's the case then my review will be swallowed up by the adulation they deserve (when I googled them I did see them getting a much better reaction than they got on the day I was there).
If you don't think 15 years of going to the Fringe entitles me to an opinion (and you don't think my marketing degree entitles me to comment on how shows promote themselves) then fine.
You've had your chance to express your opinion on me and I won't censor it.
I make a point of only posting opinions that I would be happy to say to the performers faces and reading it back a month later, I stand by everything I have said.
I can see how harsh it may sound to someone who has seen the same show two weeks down the line, with a more up for it crowd and everything clicking, but if they are honest with themselves then then they will know that their Thursday preview show did not set the heather on fire.
Post a Comment