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Andrew Hansen

Chris Taylor & Andrew Hanson
Chris Taylor & Andrew Hanson

Andrew Hansen and Chris Taylor, mainstays of crack Australian comedy squad, The Chaser, present their confusingly named One Man Show as part of the Perth International Comedy Festival.

One Man Show represents a change of pace from the satirical, up to the minute, no-prisoners comedy that characterises the bulk of Chris Taylor and Andrew Hanson’s television work, with the pair aiming for silliness rather than savagery with this show.

“It’s an old school sort of British review show with sketches and songs,” Hansen says by way of explanation. “It’s quite different in a way to what we do on TV, but hopefully it’s an amusing and funny experience for people. It has been great fun, the tour, so far, people have responded really well to the show, actually – we’ve had lovely audiences. I think once people get used to seeing Chris and me dressed up as countless different characters wearing silly wigs and putting on silly voices – it’s a parade of ridiculous characters with different obsessions. Everything from how to use Facebook in the most annoying way possible to how to conduct a national outrage campaign over a joke that people disapproved of – which is an area that interests me, obviously, so I have a whole song on that subject. There’s an outrageously insane principal of a private school who has outrageous uniform standards that he bangs through – it’s a whole mixed bag of these scenes and songs and there are a lot of false moustaches involved.”

Indeed, it sounds like it’s drawing on a long tradition of British silly dress-up troupe comedy – everything from The Goodies to Monty Python to The Comic Strip to A Bit Of Fry And Laurie. “All that kind of stuff is what Chris and I loved when we were growing up – and more so than the other Chaser guys, I think. He and I were really into that kind of British silliness. Some people have said it reminds them of those kind of live shows that Rowan Atkinson did. I guess it is in that territory. It’s nice to be able to step away from TV where, in a way, we’re kind of expected to do a certain type of comedy show and to do more of this sort of stuff in theatre. There are some typical more Chaser-y type jokes in there for people who are a little desperate for topical comedy – we have thrown that into the show, it is there, but there is a lot of madness and silliness besides. So it might appeal to people who hate The Chaser, and it is a huge audience! In fact that’s nearly everybody – everybody on Earth!”

TRAVIS JOHNSON

One Man Show is on at The Astor Theatre this Saturday, May 3, and Sunday, May 4. For tickets, go to perthcomedyfest.com.au

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