Melbourne International Comedy Festival review by Steve Bennett

It’s fiesta time! Wander into Calypso Nights and you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d stumbled into a roadshow by a genuine Venezuelan local radio DJ as he mixes soca tracks, Spanish inanities and his own applause track.

Authenticity is the key to Juan Vesuvius’s appeal… indeed it’s a few minutes until the character breaks into hesitant English at all. Barnie Duncan, the Kiwi behind the flamenco shirt, is not mocking Caribbean music, but celebrating its sexual rhythms, spreading a party spirit thought the room. This is no longer a firetrap in a condemned Melbourne office building, but the height of carn-i-val!

What could have been a one-joke show about the flamboyance of the music instead becomes a series of pleasing set pieces, with the charismatic Vesuvius enthusiastically hosting world record attempts, silly sight gags with LP covers and affable audience participation. ‘You like?’ he often asks, keen to please. We do.

The music is, of course, at the centre of this - and vinyl dealers must love it when he comes to town to clear their more obscure stock, from John-Paul Sartre to The Munch Bunch. Most of the show is conducted from behind the 1s and 2s as he shares some of the history of the music and cheerleads for some of its more interesting exponents, such as Trinidad and Tobago’s Mighty Sparrow. He does, however, emerge to show us what the man from Caracas can do with his maracas.

Sixty minutes is a slight over-reach, especially during the times when he’s repeatedly comparing his beloved music to other genres of recordings, or drawing out a cunnilingus gag, when it feels his artistic stylus is getting stuck in the same groove. But it only takes a little nudge to jolt the entertainment back on to its joyous track. ¡ Muy bueno!

Review date: 8 Apr 2015
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Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival