Sam Simmons has his own brand of comedy. On the night I attended his show A-K, Simmons was very impressed that it was his first night with no walkouts — which may give an idea of the branding.
A-K is Sam’s first Melbourne International Comedy Festival show since winning the 2015 Barry Awards and jetting off to share his laughter with the world. Now he has returned to Melbourne.
A-K’s premise is hilariously simple: ‘Forty-year-old man sits on stage and reads the phonebook.’. Luckily, he’s very easily distracted and his sidetracks take the audience on a journey through the inner workings of his mind, from euthanasia fun parks (which is actually a thing) to the horrific inappropriateness of calling an infant’s genitals a ‘pussy’.
Sam kicked off the show with a very impressive rendition of ‘Ave Verum Corpus’ which I was genuinely impressed by — perhaps there’s a musical career also calling? He intertwines the entire show with impressive recorded punchlines with three part harmonies. These are probably the highlight of the show. (I can’t say no to a well-done audio interaction.)
Simmons leapt across the stage at points, interrogating bathroom-goers on why they were leaving and telling off a stage manager for not looking happy enough, and criticising other comedians at the festival. I did appreciate his smackdown of Sam Newman from the Footy Show, however — that’s a universal topic we can all get behind.
With all the much-needed tangents, we never quite made it to ‘K’ in the Sydney phonebook. But who knows, maybe by the end of the festival he’ll get there.
I recommend A-K if you’re a big fan of obscure comedy skits, but this show definitely isn’t for everyone.
– Jasmin
Jasmin Ashton is a designer, marketer and freelance writer from Melbourne who has a lot of feelings about everything. Find them at @Jasmanna.
A-K runs until April 23rd at the Forum. Purchase tickets now.
The venue is accessible.
Read The Plus Ones’ guide to MICF 2017, and visit often to see all our reviews.
