This is the week that the team from The Chaser hung up their red noses and cream pies and retired from television. Local group The Small Poppies marked the occasion with a return season of their Melbourne International Comedy Festival show Poppycock!. I'm sure the timing was purely accidental, but as one door closes, it's good to see that there are a number of bright young things out there talented enough to step up and fill those shoes.

Poppycock! is a skit show very much in the university revue tradition. The jokes are political, Freudian, religious, heavily subtextual, and occasionally scatological.

Two girls on milk crates debate what kind of flatmate would make them appear more sensitive – a black or some gays, Kevin Rudd changes the words to All Along the Watchtower to skewer life in Canberra, John Safran and Richard Dawkins debate the existence of God, Chinese leaders Wen Jiabao and Hu Jintao call each other and get stuck in an Occidental game of Hu's on first.

It's all rather clever, and when it does get to be more clever than funny, the team seem aware of it, moving the show at a brusque pace with no sketch overstaying its welcome, and utilising a series of filmed and audio pieces to fill the dead space between numbers.

A few weeks ago our town had French and Saunders performing to a similar format. At about $140 less for a ticket, the Small Poppies represent much better laugh-for-dollar value, and they actually know how to write a sketch with a punchline.

The Small Poppies are apparently a shifting line-up of performers, and in this incarnation are Adam Brodie-McKenzie, Caitlin Croucher and Andrew Nichols.

Nichols is a subtle and ambidextrous performer, where Croucher seems to have been set to “manic” before the start of the show and this aggressive energy works within the sketch format. Adam Brodie-McKenzie was exceptional, especially for his wonderful K-Rudd and John Safran impressions.

I thought it was fabulous and witty and I'll be looking out for the next Small Poppies show, whatever it may be.

However, as I was leaving the chap in front of me turned to his partner and whispered “I'm glad that was your 20 dollars and not mine,” so perhaps as a member of their audience you need to do a little preparation to appreciate them, such as having read a book or developing a sense of humour.

 

The Canberra Times

4/8/09