Melbourne comedy festival review by Steve Bennett

Stand-up’s a wonderful artform, but if you’re seeking some spectacle in your comedy festival show, you can’t go far wrong with the all-singing, all-dancing, all-swearing Sammy J and Randy. 

Making full use of the Atheneum Theatre’s stage, the pair have a sizeable set – including a giant drinks carton – and full range of props, providing strong visual gags whenever they appear. Restraint is not a word the human-puppet duo deploy in their ebullient twisted vaudeville.

Here they take their double-act bickering to new extremes, with Sammy J playing against nice-guy type in his murderous intents towards his purple-headed partner. They fall out over their plans to run a theme park together: J keen to keep it safe, educational, and all about him; Randy more interested in terrifying rides, monkey babysitters and killer velociraptors.

A rollercoaster plot, leaping forward and backwards in time, is just enough to get the pair from one over-the-top set piece to the next, so it’s surprising that it actually holds together as a narrative. There’s a great skit with a bank manager; National Tiles advertiser Frank Walker becomes a cult figure and Randy’s revenge on a ghost train goes very wrong. And it was wrong to start with, like so much of the pair’s over-the-top humour.

Sammy J’s musical comedy roots come to the fore in a couple of numbers, not least his dismally cheesy  one-man show, A J In The Life, full of strained puns, or wordJ as we should probably call it. Meanwhile, Randy’s meglomania is allowed to run riot too.

Sammy J and puppeteer Heath McIvor have a great, quick-talking dynamic, forged from years working together.  Occasionally tonight’s banter encroaches on the indulgent: especially in a couple of puppet-shows-within-puppet shows pieces – but generally their failings of discipline are well-rationed, with a sprinkling of ad-libs to keep proceedings fresh.

And while the humour is often as gross as it is big, the performances have an almost child-like glee – and certainly the characters have the motivations of pride and petty revenge that a seven-year-old would recognise –  which proves a winning combination. It may not be sophisticated, but Sammy J and Randyland is great fun.

Review date: 1 Apr 2016
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival