The 2007 Wonthaggi Blue Light Disco - Comedy Review

What: The 2007 Wonthaggi Blue Light Disco
When: 8 - 21 April 2019
Where: The Archive Room, Trades Hall
Written by: Jordan Barr and Josh Gardiner
Performed by: Jordan Barr, Alex Cooper, and Kayla Hamill

Alex Cooper, Kayla Hamill and Jordan Barr

The Melbourne Fringe Festival can often feel a bit like a testing ground for the Comedy Festival, with many comedy acts in the former making the leap into the latter the following year. The 2007 Wonthaggi Blue Light Disco playing at Trades Hall is one of those shows and in this case it has found its natural home.

The 2007 Wonthaggi Blue Light Disco is a celebration of teenage archetypes and Barr and Gardiner have managed to tread that very fine line between finding the funny without being insulting or demeaning. Most of the sketches focus on time and locations surrounding the disco such as the toilets and meet ups outside the venue.

The only time we really find ourselves inside the hall is during the audience participation dance scenes. Here is my (first?) trigger warning for the show. You will see the Nutbush danced. At least, I think some would call it dancing...?

The show starts with a rousing musical routine by the Police supervisors (Cooper and Barr) before we get into the serious business of teens trying to sneak alcohol onto the grounds and the supervisors consuming their confiscated haul. It is 2007 so Team Edward appear on the scene and you won't believe what they do with Zooper Doopers!!!!

The spine of the show centres around a romance between Frenchie (Cooper) and Jason (Barr) who are trying to negotiate their way towards sex. The genders are inverted which allows a slightly more barbed commentary whilst amplifying the humour as well.

Jason is a tad sexually confused which he covers up by pressuring Frenchie to have sex whilst also being hindered with a penis prone to unexpected erections. His best...friend... (Hamill) enjoys sending dick picks.

Frenchie lives her life through a fantasy lens, dreaming of sex with a vampire but too afraid to do it with a real boy. Her best friend Jen (Hamill) joins her on her flights of fancy whilst also being the only thing keeping up her self esteem. There is no piece of theatre stronger than Jen's Shakespearean soliloquy towards the end on womanhood.

If you saw the show last year pop along and see it again because it is a bit different. The puppet is gone (which I get the impression is a good thing).

The 2007 Wonthaggi Blue Light Disco is a lot of fun. It is an early show, starting at 6:30pm, and is a great way to destress from work before digging into a night of comedy laughs at Trades Hall.

3.5 Stars