Smart Casual’s brand of comedy could be described as really effing dumb. Not stupid mind you, I mean the perfect blend if effing dumb comedy that is the hallmark of good Will Ferrell movies, like Anchorman. The unhinged, surreal, off topic, off kilter, off putting, off colour, off the wall mentalness that leaves you asking, “What exactly are those guys on?” Off stage Smart Casual are brothers Ben and Nick Mattick, on stage they are Roger David and Fletcher Jones. Ben AKA Roger phoned in from Adelaide to chat about the coming festival. “It is a good time to be here in Adelaide and that is what the locals say as well,” he says, backhanding the town. “Putting on a show you have to be prepared for the long hall, be prepared for people who do like and don’t like it and don’t drink too much in the first two weeks. Pace yourself. Especially if you do Adelaide before hand. I describe it to people who come to visit us as us being like those shaken up troops who have been behind the lines, post traumatic stress syndrome, that what it seems like. Whoa though, I am not describing our jobs as being hard as fighting a war, just a slight similarity.”
 
Last year’s MICF offering from Smart Casual was The Story Of Captain Entrée. My notes from the show included the words: beard, earnest, absurdist, cocktail and little donkey. I can’t tell you what they mean but I do remember it being very funny. “Last year’s show was great,” Ben recalls. “We had a really good time. We got a horrible review from the Herald sun, but that doesn’t really matter I don’t think. We thoroughly enjoyed it, it was the first time we did a straight narrative and it was really well received. We normally have a lot more silence and pauses, but it seemed like we were talking a lot in that show, so it felt smooth to me.” As a pair they come across as faux serious, thin and earnest matched against large and loud. What got you into performing with Nick, I ask. “The fact that we are siblings,” deadpans Ben. “We started out in two different fields, he was in acting and I was in a couple of bands and we joined forces to become a musical duo. We are both subtle, No. We are lo-fi musical comedy.  That is what we have been said to be but we also have a few dick jokes, which makes us a variety show.”
 
That variety continues on in this year’s show, Broken Dreams. “The show is about us, we feel like we have whored ourselves out a little bit in the last year,” Ben admits. “We were in a commercial for a ‘burger company,’ I don’t what to say who but it was for a man with red hair. So in the show we have decided to make a fresh start and move to Poland, because Poland is the place to be for musical comedy. So we are going to move to Poland and we need a few sponsors to actually get there, so we have a few. One is called s Shmilk, which is sugar milk – Shweenten up your life, don’t shwet it.  It is milk with two tablespoons of sugar in every glass. Unlike Big M we don’t use any colouring. So we are bit different, we are just normal white milk that is sweet, because kids get board of really bland milk. It is a fun hour, well 45 minutes to be honest, wait don’t say that, it is an animated show with a lot of different stuff in it, it’s musical comedy, a bit of everything and the punter will have a lot of fun.” At this stage of the interview, brother Nick wonders into the room to offer his pitch to the punters, in the form of shouting in the background, “Oh come on! Give us a go!”
 
BY JACK FRANKLIN
 
Smart Casual perform Broken Dreams at Arthur’s Bar at Rosati, 95 Flinders Lane, from Thursday March 29 until Sunday April 22 at 9.30pm (8.30pm Sundays). Tickets $24/$22 Fridays and Saturdays, $22/$20 Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, $18 Tightarse Tuesdays and groups of six or more from Ticketmaster online, 1300 660 013 and on the door.