Two very different Fringe World shows tackle the subject of death, with mixed results.
The Leftovers | Hellenic Club of WA | Jan 27,28,31 Feb, 2,3 | ★ ★ ★
‘The Leftovers‘ is a verbatim play written by local playwright Kyle Kash. The plays sees the actors retell different people’s experiences of dealing with death, it was created through a series of interviews conducted by the playwright.
This show has was performed at Fringe World in 2015 and makes a return this year. ‘The Leftovers’ is a series of short scenes that are connected by a theme, but does not have a connected narrative.
Death is one of the things we don’t talk about, and these series of short vignettes range from being heartfelt and emotional to comedic, dramatic and at times a little clumsy.
The cast of the show have a mixed range of skills, some effectively embody the people they are portraying, others simply sound as they are repeating their well memorised lines. Ron Arthurs and Richard Maganga are particularly effective.
The show quickly changes from one scene to another. the lights dimming for each of the frequent set changes, the audiences clapping between each individual scene. I did wonder if they’d have been better off leaving the lights up and exposing the set changes  – as this would have allowed the audience to become more immersed in the piece, without the regular breaks for applause.
One of the biggest challenges with this show was the space, the Hellenic Club of WA does not have great sight lines, so try to get a seat up the front. On the night we attended the room was blisteringly hot and we watched the show as sweat poured off our brows – towards the end of the show there was a reprieve and it seemed someone had found the controller for the air-conditioning.
Afterlife Laughs | Rosy O’Grady’s | Jan 27-29, Feb 4-7 + 13 |★ ★
“I’m sorry I’ve got some bad news, you’ve all died, and this is purgatory, you’ll probably be waiting here for an hour.” said comedian Cameron McLaren welcoming the audience to ‘Afterlife Laughs’.
In this show McLaren and fellow comedians Brodi Snook and Matt Storer deliver stand up comedy based around the concept the audience is sitting in purgatory waiting to see if their let into heaven or sent to hell.
At first I thought an hour for purgatory was a pretty good level of service, I spent more time waiting in queue at the Licencing Centre last week, but an hour of stand up comedy from this trio took some time to get through.
Heaven and Hell is such rich subject matter for comedian to work with; religion, regret, confessions – there were so many places this could go. Rowan Atkinson created on of the most famous comedy sketches ever about being welcomed to hell.
Sadly McLaren, Snook and Storer appeared to have just slightly adapted jokes about a wide range of topics and put them under a communal banner. Plus their jokes often overlapped, with all three of them making jokes about online dating.
McLaren and Snook delivered straight stand up sets while Storer showed off his singing chops by playing a keyboard and delivering some funny tunes.
This show provided a few smirks, and maybe even a giggle, but failed to elicit any guffaws.
Graeme Watson
