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.