To describe Alasdair Tremblay-Birchall and Andy Matthews as “clever” would be a tremendous understatement.
The long-time collaborators and writers for Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell are so switched on that by the time their audience have cottoned on to one joke, two more have landed in its place. The duo, who also co-host the widely popular Two In The Think Tank podcast, have once again brought their highfalutin antics to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival stage for another round of pseudo-edu-taining comedy.
In character as turtleneck-clad and bespectacled engineers, Matthews and Birchall take their audience on an engaging ride through the quantum and the intricacies of theoretical physics. Well, at least that’s what they purport to do: in the true inimitable style of the duo, things take a sharp turn all throughout.
Watching them onstage, it’s truly no surprise to learn that they have collaborated with Shaun Micallef frequently. The quick, semi-deadpan delivery that sneaks through clever humour is pure Mad As Hell lunacy. For fans of the show, Teleport will certainly delight.
In some ways, Birchall and Matthew’s hyper-cerebral comedy may somewhat be to their detriment. There is so much going on in Teleport that keeping up with the duo can cause a few gags to land flat. There’s enough content to craft two full length shows out of the raw data of Teleport, and the genius within the show often moves too quickly to be appreciated as much as it deserves to be.
Nonetheless, Teleport is brilliantly intelligent and thoroughly enjoyable. A seminar in stupidity and smarts all at once, Birchall and Matthews are charmingly silly throughout.
