2013 Melbourne International Comedy Festival:
• Watson —Once Were Planets
Posted on 01 April 2013
WOW!
Buy tickets fast. Watson’s Once Were Planets will sell out. At the moment this is my favourite show of the 2013 Melbourne Comdy Festival. Inventive, original, engaging, and the laughs never stop.
Tegan Higginbotham and Adam McKenzie are the members of Watson. For seven years now they have been jointly putting on shows and honing their skills. Once Were Planets is what happens when you persevere, demonstrate dedication to the things you love, and never give up on yourself or your creative friends and allies.
Once Were Planets is about a pair of astronauts travelling to Pluto. They have lost contact with Earth and are contending with boredom and frustration. Things change when they reach their destination and discover sexually precocious intelligent life.
This show is rich in creative verve with surprising and creative use of bunraku puppetry, stunning fluorescent costumes, and over 160 well constructed props. Special thanks go to the award-winning puppetry troupe The Indirect Objects comprising of Beth McMahon and Michael Bevitt. All of these things seamlessly work together to evoke a colourful future abounding in absurdity.
Higginbotham and McKenzie have a confident rapport with one another. This makes their acting and improvising a joy to watch. Higginbotham plays the overly confident innocent to McKenzie’s selfish nerd. It’s a uniquely balanced performance and I hope it encourages other such female-male comedy duos.
Geek references come think and fast in this show. The joyous silliness is magical. Once Were Planets is utterly awe-inspiring. I want to see more!
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2013/season/shows/once-were-planets-watson
Peace and kindness,
Katherine
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