Laugh Chamber
Review: Russell Baillie
The full title to this latest instalment from the still fully dressed troupe is Naked Samoans Episode One: Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.
Yes, a prequel and as the Wham! song title indicates, one which has a thing for the 80s.
The trouble is this third strike following Naked Samoans Talk About Their Knives and Naked Samoans Go To Hollywood seems a step back in more ways than just chronology.
It certainly sounded like a crowd pleaser judging by its amused first-night audience. And it would seem from the venue that they are getting more popular every year.
But it still felt like an overstretched skit. No, neither of its predecessors was exactly a work of storytelling genius, but at least they tried. The biggest effort in writing this one might well have been coming up with that title.
Of course, it does have its moments. Setting its story among a bunch of fourth-form breakdancers on the eve of the Queen St Riot give Oscar Kightley, Shimpal Lelisi, Dave Fane, Mario Gaoa and Iaheto Ah Hi a chance to have some nostalgic fun and to, er, bust some moves.
And they do take some amusing pot shots at quite a lengthy 80s pop culture hit-list.
Those random targets include The A-Team, the movies Footloose and Rumblefish (one of Fane's characters is "Motorcycle Boy," his "KC" cap alluding to old the Ponsonby Polynesian gang the King Cobras), and unfunky 80s white pop (another Fane character is "Vienna," cue Ultravox song).
However, that wind-back of the years also means that the delivery of Wake Me Up ... frequently resorts to something quite juvenile.
True, most of the characters are too, but that fall-back silliness helps make for a downhill slide of interest in the show's second half.
Granted, the sound mix - there's a live DJ helping supply the music and occasional sound effects - had first-night gremlins.
And Fane, returning to the boards much slimmer but seemingly otherwise unaffected after suffering a stroke, was his old wild-eyed multiple personality self and an often hilarious show-within-a-show.
But otherwise, a case of diminishing returns and all up, Wake Me Up Before you Go-Go is less the full George Michael, more an Andrew Ridgeley.
The show continues until Saturday.
<i>Laugh! Festival</i> Naked Samoans
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