Review – Rear Admiral, September
It has been two months since Rear Admiral set up in the Gov as the Monday night outlet for local comedy. Heckler decided to check up on it to see how it’s progressed, and I’m glad to report that Rear Admiral seems to have found a neat little niche for itself. Monday nights are a tough sell for the 9-5 crowd, but it helps that the organisers run the event to a refreshingly tight schedule. The laughs come early, from 7.30 sharp, and they come often: sets are kept trim, the roster isn’t overloaded, intermissions are short, and waffle is kept to a minimum. (And it doesn’t hurt, if you have to get home early, that the Gov is an oasis of public transportation, existing at a node where trains, trams, buses and taxis crowd you for options.)
Demi Lardner, fresh from her victory in Edinburgh’s “So You Think You’re Funny” comp, was on hosting duties for the night. This was the last show for her, along with James McCann and Angus Hodge, before they go off to seek greener pastures in Melbourne. She did a predictably good job of keeping the crowd laughing, with an impressive body of absurdist material to draw from. The lines – “having sex with a condom isn’t as good as having sex with a person” – are funny little pieces of misdirection and silliness, and her quixotic, staccato mannerisms make the jokes hit a little harder. Hodge isn’t afraid to open on a scatological joke while his parents are in the room, and he gets consistent laughs with his self-deprecating humour; McCann goes for the smarter material, with Stalin references and meta jokes about the racist implications of South African accents. It’s sad to see these guys go, and their presence in the Adelaide comedy scene will be missed.
Marc Ryan, as always, helped anchor the night with his loveable bogan routine. I can’t say enough about this guy, to be honest, he has a really genuine affectation and a knack for knowing the line where an offensive joke will start to turn off an audience. The feature act Eddie Bannon, by contrast, was a bit of a meanie: Heckler readers will be shocked to know – shocked! – that he picked me out of the audience and made fun of me. Who’s getting no stars? That guy. Doesn’t he know who I am? To be fair, he also roasted Angus Hodge’s dad, and it earned him plenty of hysterical laughter from the back of the room. (Probably they knew they were safe back there.)
Rear Admiral affords Adelaideans a great little selection of local comedy, in a cozy little venue, for a reasonable price. And we’ll keep checking back on it, but I’m confident this comedian-run comedy show will continue to attract casual and dedicated audiences alike.
