And so it was that we came to closing night of the MICF for this year. I have some mixed feelings about my festival experience. I saw nine shows, which is more I think than any year previously, but I also wanted to see so many more shows but didn’t/couldn’t for various reasons. I mean they were pretty good reasons, I was sick for a bit, then I spent a whole weekend in Adelaide, and then I had obscene amounts of uni work. But still –

Anyway, let me just give you a quick run down of my last shows:

Ross Noble / Tangentleman 

Ross Noble seems to make most of his material up as he goes along, it’s a sort of surrealist/childish/bollocks-fuelled journey into his brain and I laughed so hard I was sweating (please tell me I’m not the only person who does that). There was one joke that was a bit off in my opinion, but I guess that’s going to happen from time to time when you make it up as you go along.

Backwards Anorak / A Hip Hikers Guide to the Galaxy

I saw Backwards Anorak do a cabaret show last year based heavily on Game of Thrones, and it was pretty funny, except I’m not into GoT so I didn’t get some of the jokes. I’m totally into The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy so I thought I’d go better. I guess maybe they’re work is… well, absurd is maybe the word for it. I laughed, I enjoyed myself, I sang along and did the dance moves (apparently no-one else in the audience did them though, I discovered that when I turned around, awkward!) but it was still pretty incomprehensible. Good, incomprehensible, with singing.

Clem Bastow / Escape from L.A. 

I’ve read some of Clem’s work in The Age, and I respect her politics and her puke yellow armpit hair choices, so I thought I should see her. Her show was great, although her sound guy was odd. I suppose that’s a bit what you get for going on the last night. Also it wasn’t stand-up, it was an amusing story. A very good, amusing story.

There were so many other deserving, fabulous artists/comedians at the festival this year, as there are every year, and I wish I had had the opportunity to see more. I have a Facebook friend who was seeing two or three shows per night for the whole festival, I was jealous. One day, I’m going to write a show and maybe I’ll have the guts to put it on at the MICF. Until then I’ll just go to lots of shows, I’ll see weird lucky dip shows, and random what’s-on-in-the-next-half-hour-shows and see people I’ve heard of sometimes too. I’ll continue to sit in the front row, on my own, because no-one wants to play to an empty front row, and also fuck it, when else do you get to get up in a performer’s grill like that?

Anyway, I guess that’s it. I’m at home in bed with a knee blankey because it’s cold, thanks Melbourne weather. I’m looking forward to getting to some more comedy and theatre in the next few months and I might even get to some Fringe Festival show when it comes around later in the year.