Some people have all the fun. Beat spoke to Sketch-aggedon’s Jimmy James Eaton and Jason Geary, who performed their new show for this year’s MICF for the first time last Wednesday. “We set the bar high with our show, Sketchual Healing, last year,” says Geary. “We wanted to up the stakes this year,” adds Eaton. “We’ve put in some wild contemporary dancing, some very physical impro action, a John Travolta impersonation – we’re absolutely exhausted by the end of the show. Jason has three years of dance training but me, I’ve only done nightclub boogie training. We’ll let the people be the judge of our dance routines.” Given the success of Sketchual Healing, which was nominated for the best comedy in the New Zealand Fringe Festival, the two had high expectations of themselves for 2014’s show. “We’ve just come off a tour of New Zealand,” explains Eaton. “We didn’t have time to try it out in front of an audience before opening night.” Which doesn’t seem to have mattered. “We got big laughs,” adds Geary. “We’re really happy with it.”
Eaton and Geary have a long history of performing together. “We’re a machine!” says Eaton. How do they put create the sketches in the first place? “We do a lot of impro together,” he answers. “When we both laugh, we put it in the show. If the audience doesn’t laugh, well, we’re having fun.” With Sketch-ageddon, the two performers tread a delicate balance between allowing themselves the freedom to ad lib while still keeping things on track, since there is a storyline to it all, something to do with the end of the world. “It turned out to be about families,” says Geary. “The stories are small and intimate but they are all going around the apocalypse. Some of them are sketches we’ve done elsewhere.” “It all ties together,” adds Eaton. “The challenge is trying to balance the core of the sketch with the need to push the story through,” explains Geary. “We don’t want to get stuck in exposition land.” How do they do they prevent that from happening? “Part of it is discipline,” he answers. “You can let it go down different paths but not give yourself enough rope to hang yourself with. We know our story’s strong; we can ad lib and if it gets a laugh on the night we can sneak it into the show.” This happens more often than not – both performers say they deliver a different show each night. “By the end of the season it’s five minutes longer than opening night,” notes Geary.
Eaton reckons Sketch-ageddon feels a bit like Shaun of the Dead but a point of difference is that it brings fifteen or so sketches together in what is eventually recognisable as a narrative. “We innocently wrap it up,” says Eaton. There are 36 sound cues in a fifteen minute show as well as voice-over characters, comprising what Geary describes as very elaborate sound plots. “We wanted to have that element. It’s a rich show in terms of that stuff,” he adds. Who do they get excited about in the world of improv comedy? The both say The Pajama Men, and name The Umbilical Brothers and Lano and Woodley as favourites. “But you’ve got to find your own voice”, says Geary. Is there anything they wouldn’t use as comic material? “Things that we don’t find funny,” Eaton says. “Sexist, racist stuff. If you don’t believe it, it won’t work. That’s Buddhist comedy. And we’re both bald too – we look like dodgy monks.”
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
Venue: The Imperial Hotel, Cnr Bourke & Spring St, CBD
Dates: Currently playing until April 20 (except Mondays)
Time: 8pm
Tickets: $20-$25
