MY SKETCHEN RULES
Fringe Bar, 26-32 Allen St, Te Aro, Wellington
05/03/2015 - 07/03/2015
NZ Fringe Festival 2015 [reviewing supported by WCC]
Production Details
Young comedians bringing sketchy back
You could be forgiven for thinking sketch comedy is a thing of the past. But a group of Kiwi comedians have banded together to bring live sketch comedy back to New Zealand audiences. The sketch group Fool House will premiere their debut show My Sketchen Rules at the upcoming New Zealand Fringe Festival in Wellington, and it’s sure to be a hot ticket.
The group was founded by comedians Louise Beuvink and Sam Smith, who are also writers for the popular TV shows 7 Days and Jono and Ben at Ten. The pair met at university in Dunedin where they worked together on the infamous Capping Show, Otago University’s student revue, and now both have professional careers in comedy.
“Sam and I have both done a lot of sketch comedy before, and we know that audiences love it,” says Beuvink. “We really wanted to start a revival of sketch as live entertainment, so we put our heads together and decided to create a sketch group.”
Armed with a Master’s degree in scriptwriting from Victoria University and a passion-infused talent for comedy, Sam Smith says sketch comedy is a natural choice for him. “There’s so much humour you can get out of characters and situations in sketch comedy that you can’t really get from stand up,” says Smith. “It’s really exciting to throw our ideas into a theatrical format.”
The pair recruited three more members for Fool House: award-winning comedian Megan Grinlinton; comedian, actor and director Ashton Brown; and actor and director Ben Blakely. Together they have written and directed My Sketchen Rules, and will perform it as an ensemble cast.
“We wanted a small group of really passionate, talented people who could both write and perform the shows,” explains Smith, “that way we don’t spread ourselves too thin and we’re a really cohesive bunch creatively. We’re a tight five.”
“Like the Spice Girls,” laughs Beuvink.
My Sketchen Rules by Fool House
Fringe Bar
for three nights only, 10pm
5-8 March 2015.
Tickets are just $10 on the door or from Eventfinder.
You can follow Fool House on Twitter @FoolHouseComedy or like them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/FoolHouseComedy
Theatre , Sketch , Comedy ,
Lazy and/or incompetent, possibly both
Review by Shannon Friday 06th Mar 2015
Like so many others, I was drawn to My Sketchen Rules by the marketing material. I love 7 Days, and Jono and Ben at Ten is OK if the movie of the week sucks. So I went in with reasonably high expectations: some snappy writing, maybe some political satire from the 7 Days team, and some skill and care put into arranging it.
None of these things happens. This show feels like it was thrown together in a weekend as an after-school project by 7th Form students desperate for extra credit. But with less invention than the 17-year-olds would bring to such a project.
The setups, with the possible exception of a sketch about the drinking game ‘Never Have I Ever’, are tired and old. The jokes are either played to death in a million other places, a la the solution to the ‘whodunnit’ mystery sketch that bookends the night, or borderline offensive, such as a sketch that implies that all blind people are jerks. The writing is lazy and/or incompetent. Possibly both.
I am looking for a bright spot in the acting, and while a few of the actors might have skill to make more of better material, there just isn’t much to work with here. Giving folks the benefit of the doubt, I’d say the acting is televisual; physically static, and either writ too small or shouting. Think Jack Black in his bad movies. (Yes, Jack Black has good movies; I’d recommend High Fidelity and Kung Fu Panda.) The Fringe Bar venue is fairly small, but even in the back row, I keep missing much of what the actors are saying. Since the comedy is predominately verbal, this is an issue.
Despite being hard to hear, the vast majority of sketches end with people shouting at each other. When the show backs off the shouting, there are glimpses of greater variety, but then we’re back in mumble land. This cast could benefit greatly from a vocal warm-up.
In addition, opening night is plagued with technical issues. The show starts ten minutes late due to some sort of technical foul up, and there is a light that flickers the entire show, which drives me absolutely batty. Please, will somebody fix this?
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