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Advice You Shouldn't Need is a pretty good premise for a show. In addition to providing an excuse to laugh at outrageously stupid warning labels (always fertile ground for a quick laugh) it's a chance to find some humour in our over-administered society.

The idea is there, and Matt Elsbury has plenty of good material. But there's something lacking in the pacing and the delivery. To be fair, on this particular Tuesday night towards the end of the comedy festival, there were only 6 people in the audience including myself. Poor bugger. In an audience that small no-one wants to laugh too loud, so the crowd energy that comics feed off was limited to frozen smiles and the occasional snicker.

Having said that, there were still issues that would be present even in a larger audience. Elsbury switched back and forth a number of times between conversational delivery and traditional stand-up patter, which made the flow a bit awkward. In addition, the use of an iPhone cued with various sounds was probably not the best choice of prop. Convenient, certainly, but there's nothing quite like that second or two of waiting for a sound to start to really throw you off. A couple of flubbed punchlines didn't help either.

Despite the thin audience, Elsbury played it professionally and deserves some recognition for that. And in fact the show got better towards the end, eliciting some genuine laughs. But I wonder if this sort of material would work better in blog/podcast form, where the size of your audience doesn't matter and the material flows from one day to the next without having to be shoehorned into the stand-up format.

Kudos to Matt Elsbury for a good concept, but comedy festival-goers are probably best off looking elsewhere this time around. Then again, having read this far, that's probably advice you shouldn't need.


Advice You Shouldn't Need
Matt Elsbury

Venue: Three Degrees* | 1 QV Square, Cnr Swanston & Lonsdale Sts, Melbourne
Dates: 24 March - 17 April, 2010
Times: Tue - Sat @ 7.45pm (no show 2 & 3 Apr)
Duration: 55 minutes
Prices: Full $19, Concession $16, Tightarse Tuesday $15
Bookings: 0417 651 538 | At the door
Visit: www.mattelsbury.com

* Licensed venue. Under 18s must be accompanied by a Parent or Legal Guardian.