Chris Taylor & Andrew Hansen : In Conversation With Lionel Corn
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Chris Taylor & Andrew Hansen : In Conversation With Lionel Corn

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Written and performed by The Chaser’s Chris Taylor and Andrew Hansen, In Conversation With Lionel Corn parodied live artist-Q&A events (think Writer’s FestivalFestival of Dangerous Ideas). Amid a haphazard mock-interview, Taylor and Hansen underlined the sort of infuriating glitches that can occur at such events, including microphone failure, incongruous music and a hostile interviewee.

Taylor played the self-obsessed and vastly inept host and interviewer. Hansen was his subject, a fantasy novelist of questionable pedigree and inscrutable ethnicity (approximately Scottish-Icelandic) called Lionel Corn. Throughout the show, the onstage pair were regularly assisted by pre-recorded audience questions. The phantom audience chatter was employed to make light of the daft nonsense people typically blurt at Q&A shows – be it entirely off topic, overly acerbic, or way too self-important. This ploy was occasionally funny, yes, but overused to the point of tedium.

After stumbling through some substance-less physical humour (an exchange of saliva and unfathomable anal-resuscitation segment) the show ended with an original song, which spelled out the running theme: these events exist for and are attended by people who just want to hear their own voice.

The satirical core of In Conversation With Lionel Corn incited plenty of concurring nods, and Taylor and Hansen’s dual buffoonery nabbed frequent laughter. They seemed driven to illuminate that such quasi-intellectual talk shows are a waste of time. Perhaps it’s a valid point, but ultimately it made for a fairly tiresome spectacle.

BY AUGUSTUS WELBY