Wil Anderson

|| Wilennium || Who wants to be a Wilionaire || Wil of Fortune || Wil by Mouth || Big Laugh Festival 2002 || Jagged Little Wil ||

Wilennium

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Who wants to be a Wilionaire

Being the second show of Wil's that I've seen, I went in already prepared for what was to happen. And to a point I was. The thing that comedians somethimes forget is that using most of your material on tv then re-doing it when people come to see you live (based mostly on what they saw on tv) will not gain you popularity. But for Wil it works. I myself was thinking "he better do that bit about the ATMS that was classic".

Appearances on Good News Week and the like have seen his profile skyrocket and with it comes an increased audience demographic. The first time I saw Wil the audience was small and mostly uni students. This time it was full of uni students, families, the elderly and a couple of goth freaks in the front row (which at one point when Wil asked for a random word from the audience, they shouted out 'corpse'). Launching straight into the name of his show, Wil goes about satirising game shows as only he can, offering alternatives to Bergo's Catch Phrase (see quotes) and the hidden comedy gold in Eddie Mcquire's chins. What's good about Wil is that you get to watch his tightly scripted material but at the same time, he often goes off on a tangent and the natural train of thought that he follows leaves some people quite bewildered. But there is no doubt that his impro skills are quite honed.

Throughout the hour Wil jumps from various topics from the GST (including a brilliant pisstake on the GST on tampons if men got their periods); To offering people with crappy jobs $20 bucks.

Quotes:
"Jam and Monkey Spunk"

This was a trial run of Wil's new show. It went slightly longer that his usual (nearly 2 hours) But was well worth it. He had an almost scattergun approach to the night, ranging on topics such as the pope, fortune tellers and body image, Jumping from one to another like stepping stones, yet somehow managing to make a seamless link between the two.

Although quite insightful and new in his perception, I found some of it a bit hard to swallow. His piece on the importance of feeling good about yourself as opposed to trying to be like the beautiful people was a bit ironic (or is it alanic?).

I didn't even recognise Wil when I entered the room. Gone is the grungy hair and bumfluff (maybe that's a good thing) and the baggy clothes. Standing before me instead was an almost anorexic looking Anderson, with highlights in his hair wearing trendy clothes. And isn't he also dating Kate Fischer at this point?

Mr Pot, I would like to introduce you to Mr Kettle, he is also black.

In trying to encourage the audience to not be like the beautiful people, he's forgotten that he has in fact become a beautiful person himself, which makes his whole piece rather redundant.

But it must be said that Anderson is a great performer, keeping the show running smoothly and at a constant pace of laughter.He is also a fine stand up comic, one of the country's best, he should just chose his words a bit more carefully.

Quotes: