When they said an hour, they weren't kidding.
The Chaser's Age of Terror Variety Hour
Being a pretty big fan of The Chaser's War on Everything, I thought it was definitely worth going to see their live stage show when some friends of mine asked earlier this year. The tickets weren't cheap - $50, and that's the cheap seats - but I figure it'd have to be worth it, to get some live Chaser humour.
So... was it good? Yep, it was consistently as good as their TV show, with much the same tone - social and political commentary, lots of silly songs, a few sketches, and the occasional bad taste joke. The lineup from the TV show is maintained - Julian, Andrew, Chas, Craig, and... Dom? Yup, Chris Taylor was absent, with Dominic Knight taking his place (but this has been the case for all of their shows, it was planned from the start). Dom himself kept somewhat in the background, but did get to sing his own song about being hairy (doing it shirtless, of course).
Due to the size of the auditorium (Thebarton Theatre), I'm kind of glad that they relied on a fair bit of Powerpoint slides/projected video to make their point - otherwise it was pretty hard to see what the guys were doing close up. Heck, they even have a segment making fun of using Powerpoint, so at least that's reasonably tongue in cheek. It is a fairly slickly rehearsed show - and quite heavily scripted - even with a few small bits of audience participation, the script continues on regardless (The Chaser Quiz) which I think may have worked a little better with a bit more improv. The one section of the show that was all improv (Anna Coren's segues) went pretty well, but mainly through failure rather than success.... which just goes to show that improv is /not/ these guys' strong point.
On the whole, the standard of comedy was up there with their show, but I did walk away feeling a little ripped off. For a $50 ticket, you'd hope that they'd go for a bit longer... but true to the title, it was about an hour long, so I'd've been much more satisified with a cheaper ticket. After all, for a lot less, I saw some amazingly funny stuff in the Fringe.
One last comment: I think we've seen enough of Craig's arse for now. Please, no more.
Being a pretty big fan of The Chaser's War on Everything, I thought it was definitely worth going to see their live stage show when some friends of mine asked earlier this year. The tickets weren't cheap - $50, and that's the cheap seats - but I figure it'd have to be worth it, to get some live Chaser humour.
So... was it good? Yep, it was consistently as good as their TV show, with much the same tone - social and political commentary, lots of silly songs, a few sketches, and the occasional bad taste joke. The lineup from the TV show is maintained - Julian, Andrew, Chas, Craig, and... Dom? Yup, Chris Taylor was absent, with Dominic Knight taking his place (but this has been the case for all of their shows, it was planned from the start). Dom himself kept somewhat in the background, but did get to sing his own song about being hairy (doing it shirtless, of course).
Due to the size of the auditorium (Thebarton Theatre), I'm kind of glad that they relied on a fair bit of Powerpoint slides/projected video to make their point - otherwise it was pretty hard to see what the guys were doing close up. Heck, they even have a segment making fun of using Powerpoint, so at least that's reasonably tongue in cheek. It is a fairly slickly rehearsed show - and quite heavily scripted - even with a few small bits of audience participation, the script continues on regardless (The Chaser Quiz) which I think may have worked a little better with a bit more improv. The one section of the show that was all improv (Anna Coren's segues) went pretty well, but mainly through failure rather than success.... which just goes to show that improv is /not/ these guys' strong point.
On the whole, the standard of comedy was up there with their show, but I did walk away feeling a little ripped off. For a $50 ticket, you'd hope that they'd go for a bit longer... but true to the title, it was about an hour long, so I'd've been much more satisified with a cheaper ticket. After all, for a lot less, I saw some amazingly funny stuff in the Fringe.
One last comment: I think we've seen enough of Craig's arse for now. Please, no more.