The New Conway Explosion

Firmly grounded in Generation Y outlook and attitude, The New Conway Explosion has elements that are side-splittingly reminiscent of the early work of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, whilst bringing its own charming irreverent spontaneity to entertain.

John Conway emerged from behind a lectern to introduce himself, with Michael Burke on stage with props and sound boards. Burke carefully presented his section of the stage, decked out in coloured lights and sculptures created from found objects. Conway seemed a little lost at the start, the pace slow, the thrice repeated self-introduction wore thin. However the momentum soon gathered force, as Conway took us on a harem scarem trip through the world of overgrown male adolescents.

He didn’t bother with any overarching format, freestyling instead a series of skits, characters, game show, trivia session, props, pointless anecdotes and anti-jokes, and all material was subject to interruption by musical cues for deranged dance displays. It was even less coherent than it sounds, but once it started, the laughter was impossible to stop.

Highlights of the show were Burke’s quiet changes of outrageous head gear and associated character change, Conway’s ability to share anecdotes so lame that they were hilarious and the nagging suspicion that they had sat around with nothing on the telly and said “wouldn’t it be cool if…” and then gone and created the show. A remarkable feature of the performance was the way Conway created further characters from incidental interactions with audience members, leading to spontaneous random involvement and creating an unrepeatable experience for the audience.

While the vision of Conway solemnly seated at front of stage with a Time Bucket on his head (a bucket with the letter “T” in gaffer tape on the front, with pieces of string from the top of the bucket stretched out to plastic cups held by people in the audience à la can and string telephones), will take some time to fade, the most memorable moment of the night was participating in a rigged game of “Heads Down, Thumbs Up”. Even Conway seemed bemused with the success of that segment…

Overall a great night of fun, watching boys run riot with toys and too much energy, and while some jokes fell flat, everything was so rapid fire that the many hits outshone the misses. Conway is an intelligent slacker craving attention, and the perfect antidote to any too-serious thinking.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

John Conway and Perth FringeWorld presents
The New Conway Explosion
Performed by John Conway and Michael Burke

Perth Town Hall
1–5 February 2012