Cards, Dragons, and Lies, move aside. There’s a new House in town.
Ginge and Minge are back with their latest project, House of Ick, a sketch show centred around the creation of a brand new cult. For a whole hour, the duo fires off sketch after sketch, always giving the audience just enough to set expectations, then blowing them out of the water (sometimes literally).
There’s a definite upscaling in production value for this go around. Props feel like they were designed for the sketches. The lighting states are purposeful and add to the show’s professionalism. Transitions between sketches are sleek and seamless, never letting a second of dead air infect the stage. This is their most polished stage show yet, despite the amount of filth on display.
Once the sketches begin, Ginge and Minge latch an iron grip onto the audience and refuse to let go. Each sketch has a clear premise and is introduced with their signature chaotic energy, so the audience is never at a loss for what the aim of the scene actually is. There’s a lot for everyone to enjoy here. From some extraordinary feminist takedowns of mediocre male comedians, to prop comedy involving horse jizz, the variety of sketches on offer means that you’re never left hanging for long before something you’ll enjoy pops up.
But honestly, it’s hard not to enjoy every sketch that the duo serves.
Once again, the strength of a Ginge and Minge show is the bond which performers Nina Hogg and Mog Connolly share. Normally at this point in the review, I’d be pointing out which performers did what well, but the truth is that it’s so difficult to separate these two as individual performers. There’s a world in which the two swapped roles in any given sketch, and the result would have been just as funny. These two are in Swiss watch synchronisation, and have been for what seems like forever.
They’ve also really pushed each other to be the best performers they can be. The sketches tonight were, by far, the best I’d ever seen from them. They’ve pulled away from in-joke humour that landed with fewer but more more fervent fans, and moved towards sketches that pay respect to their closest fans, but are also just wildly funny in their own right. They’ve tapped into seemingly unlimited fountains of creativity and broken through the barriers of niche comfort that they’d mastered long ago.
House of Ick is the next stage of evolution for Ginge and Minge. It’s an insane leap forward for a duo that now seem to have unlocked a reserve of ideas that I know will continue to flood the Wellington comedy scene for years to come. The combination of the duo’s chemistry, creativity and charisma ushers in a new era of comedy, and it’s up to you to get on board, or leave.
And I, for one, am converted.
Disclosure: As a somewhat active member of the Wellington performing arts community, I may be quite 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.