claudine_c

I haven't been paying much attention to this year's comedy festival, but yesterday after work I wandered down to the Melbourne Town Hall to see what was on. While I was staring at the blackboard of the day's shows "Ben" turned up and offered me a freebie to Courteney Hocking's show. The show was about crazy inventions and the flyer had a picture of a butt-kicking machine. Sure, why not? It saved having to decide.

First I had to find the Portland Hotel on Russell St. The "venue" was a tiny upstairs room which seated about 20. Then Courteney arrived and found that the remote control on her projector (for a PowerPoint presentation) wasn't behaving. Yes folks, I'd found myself in a lecture on the history of technology! and the technology was rebelling!

Courteney talked about some of the crazy and apparently real patents she'd discovered on the internet and added her own commentary. She had even constructed one of the inventions and brought it along. The material was funny -- and disturbing -- on its own. (Courteney identified the kick-yourself-in-the-arse machine as the tenth most bizarre invention... yes, it gets worse from there.) The show isn't centred on the performer telling her own jokes -- unless you have doubts about her story that she did all this research to impress a date. It's just poking fun at other people -- but seeing what those inventors came up with, I think the humiliation is well deserved.