Robert Broderick and Sam Wilson in Abandoman – Life + Rhymes. Image via Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
You haven’t lived until you’ve heard an Irishman screaming improvised hip hop into a microphone and touching on controversial topics like growing vegetables (tomatoes, mostly), addiction to Coke Zero and Daft Punk.
Abandoman’s Life + Rhymes comes to its Melbourne International Comedy Festival debut amid a world of hype, having performed to great acclaim at both Edinburgh and Adelaide Fringe Festivals. They even provided support for Ed Sheeran on his tour of the UK.
The hype is well-deserved – this is a very funny show made by two unquestionably funny and talented guys.
Robert Broderick does most of the heavy lifting (rapping?), while Sam Wilson provides the musical accompaniment and chimes in with the last word of every improvised rap line, almost like a magic trick.
They riff on the audience from the minute they take to the stage, using inspiration elicited from the show-goers to create raps and rhymes, constantly crossing and merging storylines and narratives.
Even the contents of pockets and handbags are fuel for Broderick’s whip-fast lyrics and rhymes. The laughs he can generate with a lip gloss and a packet of tissues is pretty spectacular.
As is the case with all improvisational comedy, the audience you get on the night largely dictates the success of the show and on this night it did occasionally, through absolutely no fault of the performers, feel a little bit like hard work, with a stony-faced audience to warm-up and get giggling.
But warm them up they did, dragging the audience down to chuckle-town, until everyone was rolling in the aisles and having a rip-roaring good time.
Despite the audience taking a little bit of comic lubrication, the boys were rewarded with some gold material, including a guy wearing pink shorts who happily hopped on stage and volunteered that his name was Ariel “like the mermaid” and an older gent called Don who, as Broderick legitimately pointed out, looked like a cross between Michael Bolton and Hulk Hogan.
The backstory of the show involved a lot of things happening in the 90s (cue lots of cringing walks down memory lane) and at times was difficult to follow, but it really didn’t matter because it was just a light sprinkling of comedy adhesive holding it all loosely together.
Rating: 3 ½ stars out of 5
Life + Rhymes
Abandoman
The Famous Spiegeltent at the Arts Centre
30 March – 23 April
Melbourne International Comedy Festival
