For the fifth iteration of ‘The Comedy Corner’ “5 is alive”, we saw a range of up and coming comedians including (in order of performance), our MC Andy Burns, Nick Sun, Naomi Higgins, Juan Miles, Matthew Vasquez, Eve Ellenbogen, Joseph Green, Nicky Barry and David Rose.
On a quieter night for the developing room, it proved to be an intimate experience. Performing to a smaller audience can be a challenge that requires on the fly changes to a set, particularly if it relies on loud or divisive voiced responses. With this in mind, I will highlight a couple of the acts and focus on how they succeeded in tackling the small but engaged audience.
Starting off, pocket rocket Naomi Higgins followed up a solid performance at Comedy @ Spleen the night before with some funny and all too honest stories. Naomi’s style is intriguing as she mixes brutal realism with a delightful sweetness. While Naomi may occasionally overplay punch lines, she connects well with the audience straight off the bat, making her material funnier as well as more engaging. Naomi will be partnering with Jess Perkins for the 2017 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Yet to see them perform together but the combination promises good things.
Juan Miles had a calm delivery to his set at The Comedy Corner and appeared to enjoy hitting some harder and more contentious notes, relishing in the “aahs” and “oohs” of the audience. His stories were interesting and showed a different perspective to topical issues.
With only a short set time to work within, Joseph Green utilised it well. Joseph had a methodical approach to his set; the concentrated piece focussed on a central concept that brought the audience along with him. I am a fan of this type of structure for short sets, which allows for good use of entertaining repetition as well as humour drawn out from the subject.
The standout of the evening was Eve Ellenbogen. Eve appears clever and witty, demonstrating both these qualities with confidence. Eve addressed the small crowd early with quality humour, took the reigns and didn’t let go. While I didn’t relate to all of Eve’s set, she is up front and to the point, a style that I appreciated on the night. Having only seen Eve perform on this occasion, I am keen to check out more of her longer sets in front of larger crowds.
While only focusing on a few of the acts here, it was great to see a bunch of comedians and have a laugh at material I had not seen before. I’ll definitely be checking out this room again in the New Year! Keep an eye out on The Comedy Corner’s Facebook linked here for details about upcoming shows.