Review: Dank Comedy: The National Average

Dank Presents is a series of exper­i­men­tal com­e­dy shows cre­at­ed by Welling­ton come­di­ans and pro­duc­ers. Host­ed by Fringe Bar this Fringe, every show is dif­fer­ent. I saw The Nation­al Aver­age, based on an award win­ning rou­tine in BATS The­atre’s Late Night Knife Fight. Jon­ny Potts and Matt Pow­ell are broth­ers Cos­mo and Carl, left a whisky/whiskey bar and a pianist by their late par­ents. There were a cou­ple of ask-fors but oth­er­wise it was unscript­ed. The audi­ence were invit­ed to con­tribute an opin­ion to the Hat Full of Opin­ions and this was reg­u­lar­ly and hilar­i­ous­ly employed through­out the show. Potts and Pow­ell are both expe­ri­enced per­form­ers with com­ple­men­tary per­for­mance styles. They used one of my favourite impro­vi­sa­tion tech­niques — an idea is used then keeps resur­fac­ing in dif­fer­ent forms.  Every­thing seemed to be log­i­cal and it wasn’t until after­wards that I remem­bered it was all made up as they mixed every­thing togeth­er (most­ly) seam­less­ly. Musi­cian Amand was stuck at the back of the stage. He had a good pres­ence with appro­pri­ate music and the occa­sion­al lev­el stare at the audi­ence. An excel­lent fun evening out.

There are two more Dank Com­e­dy shows this Fringe.

Tonight! A Com­e­dy Show With Good Come­di­ans In It: a one-of-a-kind show fea­tur­ing some of Welling­ton’s hottest comedic tal­ent — and it’s back with a ban­gin’ brand new line up, includ­ing the inter­na­tion­al sen­sa­tion — Sameena Zehra!

Tomor­row! Dank 18! Win­ner of the Welling­ton Com­e­dy Awards Best Show in 2016. The lega­cy con­tin­ues, show­cas­ing up and com­ing New Zealand Com­e­dy Tal­ent, the show focus­es on vari­ety, cre­ativ­i­ty and orig­i­nal­i­ty, being host to some of New Zealand great­est young (and old) comedic minds.

 

Start your week­end right my friends, give them a go.

 

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