I love it when a show title reviews itself.
The Sassy Sexy Gorgeous Hilarious Comedy Show is a split hour of stand-up comedy with a barebones set-up that allows the biting comedy to shine for itself. The tag-team duo of Josh Metcalfe and Melissa Lawlor provide a perfectly paced hour of comedy that has the audience cringing, screaming and laughing.
The show is so popular that they’ve had to add an extra ten seats just to fit everyone who wants to see them. In a bold move, the seats are placed on the stage, perpendicular to the rest of the crowd, resulting in a feeling that our performers tonight are boxed in. Good thing they come out swinging.
Metcalfe confirms with us what we already know; that we’re only at this show because we meet the requirements outlined by the title. It’s a great way to get the audience feeling both good about themselves, and turning the small space into a cozy club where only the hot people are allowed. The two of them share a bit of banter and it’s clear that there’s great chemistry built into the show. A little bit of extra crowdwork really warms us up, and then we’re off.
The first half hour belongs to Josh Metcalfe whose comedy revolves mostly around navigating awkward situations without having the bandwidth to deal with them gracefully. On a content level, it resonates with a lot of the punters here tonight. He describes executing situations in ways that many of us wish we had the guts to do, like rejecting a pushy waiter or blaring headlights at disturbance to his late-night drives. He never falters, even as latecomers filter in, and finds his way back to his material with ease.
My favourite part of his performance though, is his physicality. He’s a very active performer but it’s never distracting. His movement is never wasted. It punctuates. The way he says ‘manifesting’ while keeling over is such a powerful moment and a perfect encapsulation of what makes his performance so compelling. He feels his material with his entire body. When he cringes, he momentarily collapses in on himself before springing into his next joke. There’s so much to enjoy here.
Which makes it insane that Melissa Lawlor follows up with a perfectly complementary set revolving around her fairly recent motherhood. Across her half-hour set, she adopts personas of different scenarios that young mothers face and nails them all. Her material feels intensely personal and, at times, very informative for the men in the audience who normally wouldn’t have to reckon with some of the things she discusses. Her crowdwork is solid, juicing plenty of quips out of her audience members and tying them perfectly to her follow-up jokes. It always feels safe to participate.
More importantly, Lawlor looks like she’s truly enjoying herself on stage. She’s constantly giving her performance its all and letting the characters she’s playing completely absorb her. You can’t do this sort of thing without being intimately familiar with your material, and knowing exactly why you wrote it in the first place. Even in the awkward moments of her stories, she plays with that temporarily limbo’d energy, then converts into another banger of a joke. It’s perfect pacing and when she wraps up, you can’t believe it’s already been a half hour.
Lawlor and Metcalfe complement each other’s energy perfectly and it’s worth taking the time to savour their fizzing chemistry at the start of the show. I would have loved to see more moments of the two of them on stage, but in a one hour show, it’s understandable that it’s a little hard to fit in.
The gauntlet is thrown. The Sassy Sexy Gorgeous Hilarious Comedy Show is a great way to kick off the NZ Fringe Festival, and I hope many other shows rise to the very high bar this duo has set.
No uggos allowed.
Disclosure: As a somewhat active member of the Wellington performing arts community, I may be familiar with a number of the performers in this show.Having said that, I am not a liar, and there is zero bias in my reviews, shut up.
Also, tickets were provided to me for free by the production. Literally changes nothing, though.