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  Art Murmurs - Wellington Reviews

Reviews

Raw Meat Monday

8/5/2019

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Lizzie Murray

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When committing to view Raw comedy, you never know if you’re going to get cringe or crass, tasty or tasteless. The Raw Meat Monday comedy show offers a platter of different styles, skills and stories. This week, ten novice comics took the brave step from bathroom mirror to the stage at Fringe Bar to share up to six minutes of their piping hot (sometimes half-baked) material. Last night’s MC Guy Montgomery was tasked with balancing a lukewarm audience with shaky newbies. His manner was consistently warm and encouraging towards the comedians and made the audience laugh at itself for their own lack of enthusiasm.
The line up was truly diverse and it was refreshing to hear from a range of ages and backgrounds. It was Brazilian Vinny VP’s last night in Wellington. Carrie Buckmaster shared the life changing tragedies of owning a house. Ron Tenant, Michael Macauley and Jamie Thomas tell naughty stories like your tipsy uncles at family reunions. The acts touched on some fun and relatable topics, but they needed a little more time in the workshop before being wheeled out before a hungry audience.

Montgomery, said it best: listening to comedians talk about break-ups is like hearing your friends describe their dreams. Relationships and heartbreak were of course overarching themes across most acts. “Bob” boasted clocking Tinder and closed with some pick up lines that needed a second opinion. Gavin Hewitson shared awkward threesome anecdotes. At times it felt as if the comics might have a better rapport with the crowd if they kept their specific audience in mind when writing their material.

Great comedy can come from the crossroad of exaggeration and specificity. Often it felt these comics needed to explore their topics in a deeper more recognisable way to land bigger laughs on stage.

Cat Martin’s cynical separation vents started strong but turned out to ultimately be more sad than funny. It’s not fair to hold these comics to a professional standard of critique, but that the name of the game is to make people laugh and feel good, not awkward.

​The second half bounced back with Vinny VP’s outrageous “can’t beat Welly on a good day” debate and Joseph Scott’s absurd humour. Scott stood out with his dry, deadpan delivery and quirky sound effect techniques akin to  fellow kiwi comedian Rhys Darby. (Always remember the martian)


Overall, it was a night of comedy perhaps a little too rough around the edges at times - but that’s what Raw Meat is about. It’s not a place to see seasoned professionals fire hit after hit at an audience of their biggest fans. Rather, it’s a space for people to get up and give it a crack.

I did leave feeling a sense of community. Through the MC we learned more about the unique relationships between the comics and individual audience members. Thank you to the super brave comedians for sharing their craft, and audience who made it out to support strangers on Game of Thrones night.

Guy Montgomery’s show I Was Part of the Problem Before We Were Talking About It is on at Te Auaha at 8:30 pm and runs until Saturday 11 May.

Raw Meat Monday is of course on every Monday at the Fringe Bar with different acts and MCs every week.

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