Sex, Lies and Improvise
The Drake, Freeman's Bay, Auckland
29/07/2010 - 19/08/2010
Production Details
SEXY LIES – a big hit with Aucklanders
ConArtists has a hit on its hands. Three years ago they launched Sex, Lies and Improvise, a new show format for the International Comedy Festival, to display their expert comedy acting skills. It was instantly a huge hit and this month it returns to ConArtists home base, The Drake (in the Victoria Park area) for its fourth short season as a teaser for the longer, Comedy Gladiators – Laugh To The Death season, which follows on directly.
SLI is an adult show appealing to audiences because despite adult content based on audiences True stories and imaginative suggestions it’s done in a safe and anonymous way. This from some of previous promotion for the show:
“If you’re keen to be titillated and don’t mind more risqué subject matter, you’ll have a ball. "Whose Line is it Anyway" meets an uncensored "Carry-On" film. Theatreview
From unbridled lust to blind dates and all the other sexy games people play, ConArtists are getting sticky with it. And, although the stories are from the audience, ConArtists are offering protection. The audience fill out their story suggestions BEFORE the show and all are kept faceless – like some people’s sex lives.
The ConArtists company has new faces alongside the quick witted and wicked senior members of one of the longest and most experienced group of entertainers in New Zealand.
Cast includes: Penny Ashton, Geoffrey Dolan, Lori Dungey, Aaron Ward, Allan Roberts, Lindsay Brown, Moody Hikmet, Greg Cooper, Nigel Burrows, Robert Mignault, Simon Cameron, Stayci Taylor, TM Bishop, Chris Neels, Eli Mathewson, Clare Kelso (plus five brand newly graduated actors to the ConArtists company in July)
SLI tells stories of hook ups, break ups, bust ups and much more. Last year the, sold out to bursting houses, show saw audience members happily suppling many interesting and surprising personal stories of love and lust. There’s good old fashioned formats as well. See actors desperately trying to work out, in a morning-after scenario, what famous person they slept with last night. What excuse will they have offered to slip away and the cocktail that contributed to the tryst and the hangover?
“There’s a fine line between offensive smut and witty smut” says Clare Kelso, senior member and Creative Director of ConArtists “and I think we walk the tightrope well with the occasional crashing fall”.
Sex, Lies and Improvise
The Drake
Corner of Wellesley/Drake Street
Media Night Tuesday 27th July, 2010 at 7pm – for hospitality and show
Season 29th July – 5th – 12th and 19th of August 2010
Thursdays only
Thursdays only
Unclenching the corporates by teamwork
Review by Caoilinn Hughes 28th Jul 2010
You get the feeling that these ConArtists may be very clever fraudsters indeed when you arrive upstairs at the intimate events room of The Drake to a shower of free nibbles, fridge magnets and drinks.
They have you before you’ve even had a chance to cement your cynical evening entertainment expression. There’s a floor manager called Randy asking if you are too, and handing you questionnaires to fill out, saying things like: “What’s the naughtiest place you’ve ever done it?”
Randy’s (Nigel Burrows) audience warm up, which involves getting the audience to make communal orgasm sounds and asking for our porn star names has me slightly nervous. At this point, it looks like the jokes will be all on us. Again, the con? However, when the true MC, Clare Kelso, enters the room as the experienced mistress figure who can take a mildly uncomfortable cross-legged audience by the reins, the comedy begins.
Starting out with some welcome improv audience interaction, Kelso encourages us to “unclench”. She carries on to introduce her cast of practised improvisers; all clad in PJs to aid the theme of sex and lies, which is the wedgie-like through-line of the evening.
Clad in a maroon velvet dressing gown, Kelso lures the improvisers’ creations along, whips them into shape when they are becoming boisterous, pulls them out mid-climax, and puts a price on their performance at the end of each scene.
Inspired by the audience’s questionnaires, the improvisers display a wide array of talent; with some of the actors complementing each other well. The cast – including Aaron Ward, Lindsey Brown, Scott J Sinclair, Nigel Burrows, Simon Cameron and Eli Mathewson – keeps the momentum up throughout; never leaving room for a moment’s silence and feeding each other opportunities like model team players.
Some highlights include Burrows’ improvised Limericks (clearly his forte), Mathewson’s hilarious performance throughout (one to watch) and Lindsey Brown’s sheer enthusiasm and opportunism.
Having seen the Improv Bandits’ protégés earlier this year putting their fresh-out-of-comedy-school talent bravely on display for the first time, it is clear that the ConArtists are the professional, seasoned variety of improv artists. They don’t miss a beat.
The Sex, Lies and Improvise show last night was a free performance to showcase the group’s abilities to potential corporate clients. It is a feat that the commercial element of the show didn’t get in the way, and I would certainly have preferred to see this group of improv comedians than the motivational speakers I’ve seen at corporate events in the past.
[Note: This Thursday Night Comedy show at the Drake is open to all comers (so to speak) – ed]
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