Jeremy Elwood in ROCK PLUS ROLL
31/05/2006 - 03/06/2006
Production Details
Jeremy Elwood
Multi award winning comedian Jeremy Elwood presents his all new 2006 festival show, Rock Plus Roll.
In a year of upheavals, both natural and man made, one event in particular turned Jeremy’s world upside down. On November 19th, 2005, he celebrated his 30th birthday. This is the show that follows.
An exploration of all the things we fail to achieve, all the things we grow up trying to grow out of, all the things we pretend we no longer like to do: Rock Plus Roll is all these with perhaps a touch of an impending mid-life crisis. Oh, and there’s music.
Jeremy Elwood has performed world wide, with particular highlights including sell-out performances in the UK, Singapore, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and at home in New Zealand. He has been nominated for and/or won every comedy award in his adopted home, including the NZ Comedy Guild Award for Best Male Comedian and the inaugural NZ “So U Think UR Funny” (a professional competition, unlike the similarly named amateur UK one!) in 2005.
Theatre , Comedy , Solo , Music ,
1hr
He is good!
Review by John Smythe 02nd Jun 2006
He got the title off the t-shirt he was wearing, he reckons, when he filled in the registration form for this Comedy Festival gig. The publicity spiel also sounded, I imagine, like a good idea at the time.
But it’s not "an exploration of all the things we fail to achieve, all the things we grow up trying to grow out of, all the things we pretend we no longer like to do …" Does it matter? Jeremy Elwood warms up with a couple of topical gags and interactions with the audience that winkle out the demographics and allow him to riff on cultural imperatives.
The substantive stuff is observations on "shit that we’re scared of", building up to a provocative song called ‘Our God’s Bigger than Your God’. Fundamentalism segues into modern society’s killjoy fears around drinking and smoking which resolves in his metaphor song, linking love to a range of terminal diseases.
Improvisation gets a great run too, with a love ballad combining random elements offered by two very different audience members and delivered in a series of audience-requested musical genres. Truly excellent!
Australian racism gets a good going over, as does small party politics … His finale is an oldie but a goodie: ‘Everybody Needs Someone to Hate’. Jeremy makes it look so easy – performing I mean, not hating, although his tirade at women for being ultra critical of male traits then bonking the bastards is very convincing. It has to be acknowledged such facility can only come with years of practice and application. He is good!
As for that title, yeah. Turns out it’s all about how very diverse things can come together to make something else again that’s great, in and of itself. Fair call. Think about it.
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