urban tales with a bullet... > reviews
3D World Review | Sydney Morning Herald | Revolver
Urban Tales presents With A Bullet…
"The continuing story of a fresh faced bright young company and the very, very silly material they produced…"
Remember all those hysterical moments in your life when you nearly pee your pants in public because you’re laughing so hard? With a Bullet… brings their audience dangerously close to the toilets in a hilarious night of comedy sketches rolled into one show. Staged at the Paddington RSL, the beauty of this venue is the dinner theatre/ auditorium where the audience can eat, drink and smoke whilst indulging in some fabulous down right dirty side-splitting humour. The company sends up bible-bashers, police, westies, the audience, gays, footballers, sluts and netballers and throws in an orgy – leaving no stone unturned in the pursuit of laughter. 3D World Magazine caught up with Diana Fletcher, an actor and producer for Urban Tales’ With a Bullet…
Tell us a bit about Urban Tales, how long you’ve been around, where you’ve done your most memorable shows and how you got together.
Urban Tales has been around since the dawn of humankind…however we only just fully manifested this millennium. 2 years ago. We started out in the middle bar at the East Village Hotel with our debut show "You’ll Eat It and You’ll Like It!" (It’s the show we’d rather forget!) Then we rolled down the hill to The Tilbury Hotel in Woolloomooloo with "Swallow". (This is the show when we found our feet) Of course we had to complete the orally – fixated trilogy…with "Masticate" at the Cat and Fiddle Hotel. "Palaver was our most recent show this year at the Exchange Hotel, Balmain. We got together at College. Actors College of Theatre and Television. Already had a good working dynamic and shared many a late night out. Plenty of our material is born in the wee hours after a few…
Did you derive most of the comical ideas used in "With a Bullet…" from real life experience or purely imagination?
Most of the ideas are most definitely from life experience…but once we have an idea we like to bend it a bit and whack it under the microscope. Eg, All the girls in UT have played netball when we were younger but we always shaved our beards off first…
What’s the funniest/ rudest/ crudest thing that has happened to you on stage or in rehearsal for this show?
Rehearsal for the Porno Scene got pretty rude sometimes…especially when having to write shorthand for the tableaux positions. Eg. Amy pissing on me, while fisting Sean…1, 2, 3, Ahhhhh! Thank God for negative space in performance.Sasha Hawley, December 2001
Comic tales that hit their target
WITH A BULLET
Paddington-Woollahra RSL
Urban Tales' stickability is paying off. The company has been writing and performing comedy revues for two years, and this show, its fifth, is the pick of them - literally, being a "best of" from the preceding four.
As one would hope, there are fewer weak links and more laughs.
The sketches, Christopher Baker's direction and the acting - especially the timing - are all more taut than before.
Muffy Potter's "Jiggy Jiggy in the Bedwa", one of the funniest sketches, succeeds largely due to the exquisite reactions of Amy Kersey's bed-buying customer to Potter's Mediterranean salesman.
The angle of a knee or wrist communicates as much as anything passing across Kersey's face, as starched shyness turns to carnal craving.
"Big Gay Eggs" has a wickedly perceptive opening with Nick Flint, Brian Mott and Sean Lynch drinking, perving and listening to Cold Chisel with all the awkwardness that only males can muster.
It is debatable, however, whether they picked their own best work - no doubt a hot topic during the show's formation. I was disappointed to not re-encounter the dazzling piece about children left waiting in a car while their parents drink and gamble.
The company's increased confidence and competence masks the fact that the higher stage and greater expanses of the Paddington RSL are often not as ideal as the intimacy and immediacy previously enjoyed at the Cat and Fiddle and Exchange hotels.
However, the larger stage is a boon in the ensemble numbers.
Urban Tales will not die wondering if they could have injected more energy. Lapses there may be, but you never go for more than a couple of minutes without a laugh or at least a giggle, and that is rather better odds than watching brain-mulching TV "comedies". With a Bullet is definitely worth a shot.
Until December 15.John Shand, December 5
TALES FROM THE UNDERGROUND
Fast funny theatre that bites.Sketch comedy with a satirical jab at our social conventions, theatre in a pub where drinking and interaction is encouraged, slick choreography and energetic musical numbers. This is Urban Tales With a Bullet, a piece of theatre where a group of young actors, writers and directors put their comic talents on the line.
“We get the verdict back from the audience straight away – and the evidence is that the people find the show hilarious – which is a great confidence boost,” says Rebecca Tully, one of the creators of the show.
“The audience recognise the sketches we do – the footballers, the netballers, the Friday night Christian group – there is a bit of shameful suburban memories there for a lot of the audience. We, as writers are not that far removed from the material we create. Some of us went to the Friday night Christian group and we remember the songs we sang and what we did and that formed the sketch.”
The members of Urban Tales all graduated from the Actors College of Theatre and Television, where the actors were encouraged to create their own work. Fuelled by a love of theatre and performance, the group pooled their collective talents to create not only a production but a business complete with a website (www.urbantales.com.au), t-shirts and, believe it or not, underwear.
“Creating your own work seemed feasible while at college but once you are out in the big wide world you are on your own. One of our members Diana, did a government assisted small business course – it was a dream of hers to create her own theatre company for a long time – then she just rang me up and said do you want to be in a theatre company and I of course said yeah! Now we’ve been together for two years and we have never lost money on a show. How many theatre companies can say that!” says Tully.
“These days to create your own theatre it is imperative that you are a business person. You have to understand marketing and PR, financial stuff and you need to have a level of professionalism in producing the shows. And the GST has made it very hard for people working in the arts.”
The Urban Tales crew have a unique creative process, collaborating with each other on everything from sketch ideas to production duties to marketing and account keeping.
“When we first started I didn’t have much confidence in my writing but the feedback I get in the group is amazing – there is no other forum where I can throw a random idea into the circle and have the time and allowance to work on it. Everyone has an opinion but that is good as we have enough respect for each other to accept that. It has taken a lot of effort to get to this level in our work but it is worth it.”
Whatever they are doing the formula seems to be working. Past Urban Tales shows have been run away successes, the audience appreciative of the fresh and original entertainment. With a Bullet is the best of the previous Urban Tales shows and is going into its second season at the Paddington RSL.
“You get this amazing energy back from the audience when you are performing and that really feeds me – it’s not something you get at work or in any other place. We are just ten artists trying to pay the rent, eat and have some fun on the side.”
With a TV pilot on the horizon and more shows this year, there’s a good chance that the Urban Tales team will be having more than just fun.
Catch Urban Tales latest show at the Paddington RSL.By Laura Scrivano, 18th March 2002
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