Reviewed by Beth­any Miller

Firstly, what a bril­liant premise for a com­edy game show. Being one of those “gif­ted” kids, I was taken by the name from the start – the nos­tal­gia of a school pro­gramme for uncon­ven­tion­al thinkers that I real­ise now were prob­ably all the oddballs and undia­gnosed neuros­picy types. Hon­estly, a lot of them must have ended up as comedi­ans and impro­visers on stages like this!

But being a Jim Fish­wick spe­cial, the mas­ter­mind behind The Saboteur, and a com­pet­it­ive improv all star, there had to be more to it. And of course, there is.

Spoil­er alert, there’s no epic sci­ence inven­tions, chess tour­na­ments or future prob­lem solv­ing. But behind the facade of party tricks and mad skillz, we get to rel­ish the art of decep­tion. How well can the guests shimmy their way through a sham show or decipher another’s bluff? It’s like an epic ver­sion of two truths, one lie. And as a genu­inely thrill­ing bonus, the bizarre skills of these well known per­formers is actu­ally shock­ing – or as Aus­tin Har­ris­on puts it, “exhil­ar­at­ing”!

On open­ing night our guest con­test­ants are Aus­tin Har­ris­on, Tara McEntee, and Lily Cata­strophe, excel­lent per­formers who bal­ance each other’s ener­gies beau­ti­fully.

Lily Cata­stroph­ie is such an enigma; an infec­tious comedi­an who is equal parts sassy and endear­ing. You can nev­er tell if Lily is grift­ing because she sounds sar­cast­ic or like she’s lying about her skills every time. Then she busts out a flaw­less Pikachu por­trait or cor­rectly guesses a list of songs after only the first second (while squat­ting to help her think, which Aus­tin points out is yet anoth­er impress­ive tal­ent). She’s a bit like that play­er of Mafia who is con­stantly voted out because they can only sound sus­pi­cious. Beguil­ing and highly watch­able, Lily uses her charms to remain firmly in the lead.

Aus­tin Har­ris­on is a fant­ast­ic listen­er, and uses this devi­ously to play the bully, weapon­ising his tal­ent for cheeky banter. Tara McEntee is always there to call him out, mak­ing these impro­viser friends a bril­liant com­edy duo. Tara has delight­ful fake it till ya make it energy. She also has fab­ulous side­line sass, one liners and guess­ing strategy.

Shout out to Tara’s out­burst of “scup­date?” after the MCs announce “time for the score update”, which Aus­tin draws atten­tion to so the MCs jump on, talk­ing about “scups” as if it’s very ser­i­ous sports com­ment­at­or jar­gon.

The whole team’s wit and ensemble sup­port is TIGHT, espe­cially MCs Jim Fish­wick and Mal­colm Mor­ris­on, who make an ador­able pair of hap­pi­ness. That’s how you know the team are major­ity impro­visers, because every juicy moment is yes-anded the hell out of. Jim, the primary host, weaves the show togeth­er effort­lessly. They hold the room with play­ful light­ness win­ning the audi­ence over instantly – impress­ive for a Wed­nes­day 9.45pm show!

The col­our theme of orange and pink is a stun­ner that gives life to the late night show, with match­ing light­ing and glitzy AV oper­ated by Em Maguire. Shout out to Tara’s bright pink blazer to suit. I only wish the whole ensemble would join the zesty com­bin­a­tion. The AV is very slick, with help­ful infograph­ics for the more com­plex rounds. Jim is a mas­ter of game the­ory theatre com­bos, and it’s a delight to wit­ness.

Mal­colm is Jim’s equally love­able co-host for the even­ing, who gives hil­ari­ously dry recounts dur­ing score updates but can’t keep a straight face before con­test­ants are tasked with mak­ing him laugh. Malcolm’s try­ing-not-to-laugh face has the audi­ence in stitches and Jim yelling “pull your­self togeth­er”!

At the show’s core is the thrill and sat­is­fac­tion of giv­ing things a go whole­heartedly. We nev­er know wheth­er the con­test­ants will suc­ceed,  so when they do it’s alarm­ingly impress­ive. But shar­ing in the joy of con­fid­ent, earn­est, glor­i­ous fail­ure is an extra spe­cial treat. If we threw ourselves at daunt­ing tasks with this much bravery in real life, maybe we’d be “future prob­lem solv­ing” after all.

It’s the sign of an enthralling show when my strongest desire is to be more involved in the action. Are there moments where the audi­ence could have more par­ti­cip­a­tion or say? Ran­dom audi­ence tal­ent inter­ludes? Jim picks up on an audi­ence dis­cus­sion (about a con­test­ant’s bal­loon blow­ing tech­nique), which I get to share with the room. The fun of this inter­ac­tion has me won­der­ing what else could be integ­rated?

How­ever, so much of the fun is watch­ing the action through the oth­er player’s eyes, as they voice what the audi­ence is think­ing or high­light the hil­ar­it­ies we hope not to miss.

Is the show empower­ing niche par­lour mar­velors or inspir­ing a gen­er­a­tion of dis­aster artists? Either way, this tight and fresh fram­ing of com­pet­it­ive com­edy is deli­ciously watch­able and well worth stay­ing out late for!

Grif­ted & Tal­en­ted, presen­ted by Jim Fish­wick and guests, is on for one more night, Sat­urday 10 May at te Aua­ha, as part of NZ Inter­na­tion­al Com­edy Fest­iv­al. Nab a tick­et before the show returns to Aus­tralia for the Sydney Com­edy Fest­iv­al.