critical mass
“Mrs Peacock … are … brilliant … , … shocking … and … over the top … Spot-on!”Reviews have got to be the best part of the Festival. We just love them. There's nothing like the opinion of someone who didn't pay to come to your show and probably isn't part of your target demographic to really warm the cockles of your heart.
- Simon Sweetman, Dominion Post, Friday 19 May
Actually we've never had a festival show reviewed before (aside from a one line gripe from Lynn Freeman in the Capital Times about having to miss our show because we didn't start on time) so this is quite a novel experience.
Firstly, Jess Manins of the Lumiere Reader has given us a rather nice review - though she does take issue with the number of poos and wees jokes in our set. In response we'd like to point out that poos and wees are nothing to be embarassed or uncomfortable about. Everybody does them. Even people who've been in terrible accidents and have to use some sort of poo-bag apparatus.
And Simon Sweetman gave us an absolutely glowing review in the Dominion Post, the highlight of which is above. Thanks Simon - you'll always have a special place in our hearts (the full review is not online, but will be posted in comments).
[UPDATE]: Just noticed a little something about the names of all of the reviewers mentioned above - check it out...
Simon SweetmanBut what does it all mean? I have no idea.]
Lynn Freeman
Jessica Manins
[UPDATE 2]: We've also had an indifferent review from Melody Nixon at Lumiere (who says what we did, but doesn't mention how well we did it - although she did say that our melodies were "sweet"), as well as a a somewhat less than nice one from Kate Chapman at the same site.
Kate says that our "lyrics were not particularly amusing". I guess that's what we get for trying to address the issues. The haters just don't understand that we're doing it all for the kids.
1 comment:
CHEEKY RHYMES A CHALLENGE FOR COMIC DUO
Simon Sweetman, Dominion Post, Friday 19 May
Mrs Peacock is a musical/comedy duo comprised of local lads Dave Smith and Jarrod Baker. The duo will probably be forever frustrated at comparisons to Jack Black's musical endeavours with Tenacious D and Flight of the Conchords, the Kiwi duo that are world-famous practically everywhere but at home.
But until Mrs Peacock can develop an act that stands up and away from South Parkand Beavis and Butthead-styled scatological rants, the duo will be plagued by suggestions that they are also-rans in this difficult genre to conquer.
Last year Mrs Peacock was awarded "most offensive gag" at the comedy festival; the duo puff their feathers out proudly, performing this song that won them this form of acclaim. It's not so much offensive as it is silly; a beyond ribald rip-off of ideas better explored decades earlier by Frank Zappa and Denis Leary for starters.
Zappa's abilities were particularly special because his deliberately offensive comedy was shrouded in technically brilliant music; Leary's comedy translated well to music because he wrote simple, catchy tunes and he was doing the anti-PC thing at a time when political correctness had really established itself.
It's too easy to be allegedly shocking, to push things too far these days and when simple gags in student magazines can result in newspaper headlines that seem totally over the top, two guys with a guitar had better be funny as well as attempting to alarm.
The duo is sporadically augmented by a three-piece backing back, introduced as "the Rock-Tron 3000" - this adds musical weight to their ideas, and is a concept the duo would be wise to explore further. Teh band allowed the songwriting duo to aoffer some genre parodies (nu-metal, emo) that were close to spot-on, as well as dishing out musical quotes from Lionel Ritchie's Easy and Andrew Lloyd-Webber's Phantom of the Opera. These riff references deliberately placed out of context were the funniest things Mrs Peacock offered.
The group's nearly po-faced alt-rock re-working of Vanilla Ice's Ice Baby [sic] proved there is some potential for talent to shine; both singers are blessed with decent voices, but as the shock-legend of grimy cinema, John Waters, said in his memoir, "to understand bad taste, one must have very good taste". At this early stage in their comedy career, Mrs Peacock is still tossing out cheeky rhymes written during detention when the teacher wasn't looking.
Post a Comment