When TV musical quiz show RocKwiz began its life as a weekly Saturday night live TV show on SBS in 2005, it didn’t take long for it to find favour with music lovers, leading it to becoming an Australian institution. Its quirky comedic format mixed with its musical knowledge questioning, live music guests and audience member participation, was a breath of fresh air, and unique for Australian television at the time.
Its popularity has seen the show become a touring franchise, allowing the show to move out of its city habitat and into the regional centres of Australia, with a stopover at West Gippsland Arts Centre in Victoria.
As it does at every show, the proceedings began with quiz master Brian Nankervis’ selection of possible candidates, who were offered the chance to participate as contestants via the process of answering several music trivia questions. Once the lucky final four were chosen, they were brought up on stage to sit alongside celebrity guest musicians, to form two teams, who then battled each other for the winning points.
The show’s host Julia Zemiro, with her rapid-fire wit, effortlessly made sure the show never lost its sense of fun and appeal, always upping the entertainment value by serving up the laughter and fun in spades.
The show is cleverly put together – with spontaneity its core asset – which allows the infectious laugh-a-minute fun to continue unabated. The TV format translated exceptionally well to the stage, especially within the theatre setting of the West Gippsland Arts Centre, and with the famed RocKwiz Orkestra providing the live music backbone, the musical treats kept coming.
The night’s musical guests included Mia Dyson and Jess Hitchcock and, while certainly talented, their performances were uninspiring and felt unconnected. A large reason for this may have been due to the audience being of the older demographic.
RocKwiz ticks all the right boxes when it comes to music and fun, but does need to revamp and rethink its approach to the featured musical guests. Choosing those with more of a familiar profile to suit the demographic would allow the performers and audience to connect better. Regardless, RocKwiz delivered a thoroughly enjoyable evening – even though it did feel a little too long at two-and-a-half-hours.
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The show’s popularity was displayed further by the quantity of merchandise items on sale, which ranged from T-shirts to vinyl records.
Never Mind the Buzzers, Here’s RocKwiz LIVE! occurred for one night only on 16 November 2024 at West Gippsland Art Centre.
