A good rule of survival for the comedy festival is to avoid shows with puns or exclamation points in the title. Puppet Up! earns an exemption through the sheer talent of its performers. The show is Whose Line Is It Anyway? with puppets, adorable Jim Henson workshop puppets, who swear and talk about sex like an unscripted Avenue Q.
Host of the show, Patrick Bristow does a stellar job of wrangling the cast and audience along through the insanity of puppets doing whatever the hell they want. However, the show’s strength – improvisation – is also its biggest weakness. Asking the audience to yell out jobs, movie titles and so on means you are also at the mercy of the kind of people who like to yell things out in a theatre. And those sort of people don’t think before they start bellowing. The good suggestions resulted in great gags, the bad, well the performers are a talented bunch and work hard to make it work.
Standout of the night was Colleen Smith’s Sondheim inspired Toorak spa bath song. For me as a Muppets fan, the highlight of the night was the recreations of classic Jim Henson performances, they were worth the ticket price alone. Henson Alternative’s Puppet Up! prides itself on being adult and bawdy but the magic happens when they puppets get to be puppets, they are a class act.
BY JACK FRANKLIN
