Austin Harrison
It’s Saturday night in week one of the comedy fest and there’s some serious excitement in the air. In the foyer of the St James Theatre, over a thousand punters are here to see one of our own- Melanie Bracewell playing the biggest venue of her solo career (so far) for Forget Me Not. She enters the stage and reveals that she’s pretty excited about it as well. Over the next 60 minutes Bracewell proves to us exactly why she’s here.
Forget Me Not traverses a wide array of real life experiences and observations. From user reviews for eggs, to attending an eye test with your grandad, and the trials and tribulations of when your boyfriend has short-term memory loss. It’s standard observational fodder, laced with a healthy dose of absurdity and social commentary.
Bracewell sets up every premise, and joke with precision and intent. Every detail adds a layer to the narrative of the joke. This is an extremely economical comedy show. Every laugh and giggle feels like a stepping stone on the way to a bigger howl or cackle.
Bracewell is fresh off performing for several weeks at the Melbourne Comedy Festival and it shows. Her performance is so slick, so easy, so unassumingly tight. She’s a comic at the top of her game. Bracewell also expertly switches between two modes of joke/story-telling.
There’s Melanie Bracewell, here in the room telling jokes; then there’s Melanie Bracewell, the extremely self-aware and overtly conscious self-critic. The dialogue between these two modes is so entertaining and allows us as the audience to simultaneously connect with Bracewell, while also finding her ridiculous and funny as the butt of many of her own jokes. It’s a style which I suspect is simply Bracewell’s nature, rather than something crafted for comedy purposes, but by golly is it effective and charming.
The show is given an extra depth with a surprisingly sweet moment Bracewell shares about her grandfather, who it turns out is a pretty famous meme. I’m so glad this personal touch has been kept/added to the show. It offers a moment of pathos at just the right time.
I’m over a dozen shows deep in the Comedy Festival now and have seen both international and highly established NZ comics. Forget Me Not places Bracewell right up there among the best of them and more than deserving of this magnificent venue and massive crowd. She’s on her way to becoming a national treasure and we’ll be claiming her as our own long after she’s conquered Australian television (which I gather The Cheap Seats is well on the road to doing)!
If this show was an egg, I’d give it five stars. It had the perfect colour, great flavour. It changed my life.
Forget Me Not has one remaining performance in Christchurch on May 27th. Tickets can be booked through the Comedy Festival Website.