Lee Mack and Russell Howard; Indian Invader at the Comedy Festival

By GREG DIXON

Two Poms and two Indians. A strange combination for an evening out among the laughs at the International Comedy Festival?

Well, not when you consider a good English pint always goes well with a good Indian curry. But two more different servings of humour you won't find in one evening.

The Indian Invaders are Tarun Mohanbhai and Rajeev Varma, two New Zealand-born Indians who, a la the English television show The Kumars, mock and prod Indian stereotypes ("savings aren't for spending, they're for saving") and custom.

The show is essentially a short play involving a father explaining to his son how he came to New Zealand in 1968.

Playing an ever-changing series of characters, the pair mix Bollywood conventions, props, light puppets, sock puppets and even a slide-show to tell their story. It's very busy - perhaps a little too busy - with them constantly running on and off as the yarn progresses.

The humour is hit and miss. The gag involving why New Zealand was chosen as the destination for immigration (involving marks on two brothers' testicles) fell flat, as did the light puppet show involving the sinking of a ship.

It's when the story is in New Zealand that the laughs come, particularly a short, sharp caricature of Jake the Muss: "If Tem Morrison can play a Pakistani, then I reckon a couple of lads like us can play Maoris."

The show is recommended for its imagination, the duo's versatility and the unexpected poignancy of the closing slide-show.

The festival reckons Lee Mack, one of its brightest stars, is too big for The Classic club. He wasn't on Wednesday, with the Comedy Chamber less than half full.

Both he and special guest Russell Howard (he gets a half-hour) had a big room to fill and both seemed, initially, a little overwhelmed by the emptiness of the venue. But both stand-ups have gags that can fill a stadium.

Howard is a comedian who wants to work with his audience, using the age-old stand-up hors d'oeuvre of picking on the punters and asking where people are from and what they do.

But his main meal of yarns - from his youth (a naked, drunken mate dancing with old ladies, and "pony-tickling" as a bored youth in a small village in Gloucester) and his day - is one hilarious, if too-short, serving.

Mack is undoubtedly a master of stand-up. His hour-long set is clearly a carefully and skilfully honed thing, but is delivered with the kind of energy and surprise of sudden invention.

He doesn't do politics (thank god), but a series of quite mad observations: If Jesus had been giving two thumbs up on the cross, there would be no such thing as Christianity; cats are very nonchalant cleaners until they get to their chins.

He's handy with a pun (and enjoys the groans from his audience) but, better still, he knows a killer one-liner when he's got one: of trying to get a cut-rate while being mugged in Melbourne, he concluded it was "typical English mentality really. Even when I'm getting mugged I'm looking for a discount".

Laugh? I nearly died. You should see this man before you do.


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