Melbourne International Comedy Festival review by Steve Bennett

Comedy meets immersive theatre in this spooky experience starring… well, a reputedly haunted decommissioned prison where 133 people have been hanged.

Trying not to be upstaged by the eerily sinister Old Melbourne Gaol are well-established sketch duo Watson, aka Tegan Higginbotham and Adam McKenzie, plus partner-in-exorcisms Liam Ryan.

‘What happens in jail, stays in jail,’ we’re warned as we gather at the start, before being regaled with some creepy old ghost stories, usually undermined by McKenzie’s daft, camp-ish interruptions. But they are just stories, right?

Needless to say the unsettled spirits are rattled by our presence, and the show becomes a chase through dimly-lit 19th Century corridors, through genuine padded cells … and through nightmares. Should it ever be too much, we are given a safe word to yell, but fortunately no one needed to deploy the ‘Cumberbatch’ tonight.

The team have created an engrossing story and a genuinely menacing atmosphere. While both jokes and horror depend on the shock of the unexpected, they are not always good bedfellows when it comes to ratcheting up the tension, yet Watson strike a good balance between the two. The initial teasing banter between charismatic (relative) straightwoman Higginbotham and the more jocular McKenzie gradually gives way to the rising tensions of the bloodied ghost story. Even so, dispatching at least one of the spirits encountered early on is non-traditional, to say the least.

This finely-executed site-specific show, which premiered at last year’s Melbourne Fringe, is surely one of the most memorable experiences on offer this festival. After all, not many comedy performers set out trying to haunt your dreams…

Review date: 9 Apr 2015
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival