Being a fan of fan fiction (HPMoR!), I was looking forward to this show. For some reason I imagined comedians making jokes along the theme of fan fiction or their experiences of being fan fictioneers, as the show refers to themselves, or perhaps some kind of vague narrative around this idea. But no! It is even better!

Not quite a sampler show, but still allowing you to get the benefit of nine different performers for the price of one show, see a little of their personality and decide if you want to make it a priority to get along to their further individual shows, these comedians are actually reading out actual fan fiction that they’ve actually written! 

And they’re not all nerds, so even if you’re unfamiliar with the wonderful and whacky world of fan fiction (and if you’ve read Fifty Shades of Grey, you’re not), there is plenty of capacity and explanation for the layman to be able relate to this highly specialised area of penmanship.

According to Joseph Harper, the MC of the evening, the show is different every time, with completely different stories, told in a variety of reading methods, from gesticulated acting out with voices for different characters to the monotone bad-reading reading style echoing the voice in which you might read some particularly bad fan fiction in your head, and which fittingly accompanies the frequently bad-writing writing style of fan fiction. Of course none of these writers are genuinely bad writers, and nor is the show mocking those who are.

So because you won’t hear any of these stories next Sunday anyway, here’s a run-down on what you might have missed:

Home, Away and Alone – a Home and Away/Home Alone mashup by Joseph Moore: the entire population of Summer Bay has gone to Paris leaving Alf behind with two burglars.

With lashings of schadenfreude, the story of Aquaman and Outdoors with Jeff by Jamie Adam.

An All Blacks fan fiction from Sam Smith for either rugby lovers or haters, otherwise titled A Page from Richie McCaw’s Diary.

Heidi O’Loughlin reads the story of Harry Potter on the Jeremy Kyle Show in which it is revealed that his wizard fantasies are in fact the coping techniques of an abused child, now a horribly maladjusted adult, and I think, “Oh yes, now the whole series makes a lot more sense!”

At this point Joseph Harper shows his lack of nerd knowledge, or perhaps his ahead-of-the-times-ness, by revealing that he and his brothers used to play a form of Quidditch in Christchurch by throwing golf balls at each other from trees. It sounds a far more painful version than the currently established sport of Muggle-Quidditch.

Jarrod Baker writes the Knight Rider Finale That Never Was and this is probably, for me, the most fan-fictionish fan fiction in Fan Fiction’s true spirit – such passionate love for a story line and characters that you feel the authors did not do their creations justice in simply stopping at the point that they did and you feel compelled to continue and improve on the universe, or fittingly conclude it as the case may be. 

Tom Furniss writes the most complicated story – Eduardo Plughands: a Guatemalan Edward Scissorhands but with plugs for hands, turns an Amish village upside down and exposes its hypocrisy when he introduces both electricity and love to the town, the romantic tragedy leaving the audience in either tears of laughter or simply tears.

There is a guest appearance from Josie Long who fantasises about a holiday with the characters from Girls. (Another good reason for writing fan fiction is that you identify with the universe so strongly you feel you can’t live in your real world and like O’Loughlin’s Harry Potter, in which the entire J.K. Rowling series is his own fan fiction, you write yourself into another world.) 

Fan fiction being largely, today, an internet phenomenon (although of course it predates the internet), Steven Boyce sitting to the side of the stage provides the comments section, but without the usual trolling and ranting of the online world, which is nice. 

All new episode next week and if you’re not a fan of fan fiction already, you’ll no doubt be leaving the show in waves of inspiration to write your own.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

I wasn’t sure what to expect. My associations with the Fringe Bar are pasties (my friend is Burlesque performer who regularly features there) and past times where tequila has met ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ too many times at some bewitching hour of the night.

Fringe Bar also has a long time association with improv and comedy shows, but five o’clock on a Sunday seemed like a rather odd time to be in there, watching a comedy show. Looking around, I notice there isn’t an empty seat in the bar.

FanFiction Comedy is an Auckland-based show where comedians choose characters from literature, television, film, pop culture or elsewhere and write short alternative pieces of fiction for them.

In case you are unfamiliar with Fan fiction, Lev Grossman describes the phenomenon in TIME Magazine as, “. . .what literature might look like if it were reinvented from scratch after a nuclear apocalypse by a band of brilliant pop-culture junkies trapped in a sealed bunker. They don’t do it for money. That’s not what it’s about. The writers write it and put it up online just for the satisfaction. They’re fans, but they’re not silent, couchbound consumers of media. The culture talks to them, and they talk back to the culture in its own language” (July 18, 2011).

FanFiction Comedy is a mash up of Fan fiction and stand-up comedy. The Wellington line-up features seven comics; five Auckland-based (Jamie Adam, Edith Poor, Heidi O’Loughlin, Eli Matthewson and Joseph Moore) and Wellington-based (Sam Smith and Jarrod Baker). Rounding out the cast is a host (Nick Rado) and a respondent (Steven Boyce).

On the reading list for this evening, Pokemon meets Shakespeare, Mike McRoberts continuously high-fives himself as he rescues the TV3 News  from disaster, and Teen Moms (in honour of Mother’s Day) call their children names such as Pashmina and “stubborn abortion”. Unsurprisingly, Harry Potter features in two FanFiction segments.

In one fiction, by Heidi O’Loughlin, we get the backstory of the badger, symbol for the Hufflepuff house. Whereas Joseph Moore’s interest is in Harry Potter in Legoland where two Rons are with Harry, only one has girl hair. After a confession of love between Harry and Ron (the one with the girl hair), they meet their doom by vacuum cleaner suction. But don’t worry, Harry in Legoland is always smiling.

To avoid dust, two FanFictions put a nice spin on things (pun intended). Jarrod Baker takes his instructions literally and writes fiction for a fan, a Goldair desk fan that is. With puns such as “powerless” and “fanfare” this hilarious tale shows that even with superior fans such as Russell 5000s, there is still a place in the house for smaller appliances.

Eli Matthewson presents a musical FanFiction where the protagonist is a dying Star Wars Stormtrooper who has a love song for his unrequited, the droid C-3PO. A nice riff on the Star Wars Theme Music (via ukulele) and rhyming couplet with “I am ready” and “. . . to give you heady” make this a treat.

Another interesting facet to the show (which is never specifically mentioned) is that each of the fictions is delivered from a different source: an ipad, a moleskin, a piece of paper, an exercise book, a mobile phone, an email, and from memory. Various media give each performance an additional individual twist.

The only part of the hour that could use improvement is the in-between acts portion of the show. Steven Boyce plays the role of ‘critic/judge’, responding to each of the FanFictions. Rarely does Boyce’s commentary, where he ‘plays down’ to his audience by donning a wide-eyed, inane persona, offer any new insights or laughs to the material. His feedback, rather, stunts the energetic flow (each of the pieces is less than 10 minutes) of the show. Clearly, Boyce is self-assured and has stage presence, but he did not bridge the gap between the performers and audience as the person in that role is presumably meant to do. This element of the show could perhaps be explored further to include audience participation, which is nice in any live event. 

FanFiction Comedy is an ingenious concept, and it is successfully executed by the seven comedian/authors at the Fringe Bar in Wellington. Employing standard literary tropes – puns, rhyming, and alliteration, to name a few – as well as imaginative storylines to derive laughs, FanFiction is a clever, hilarious and fun-filled hour of comedy. Confession (which has nothing to do with bad karaoke): I am now a fan of FanFiction Comedy.

FanFiction Comedy is presented once a month in Auckland, and talk at the show suggests that it might make begin to make a regular Wellington appearance as well. As a new fan, here’s hoping.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer