Arcade Arcade: Stranger-er Things (MICF)

There are three things that are guaranteed to derail any comedy show: numerous technical/cue hiccups, involuntary audience participation and said audience trying to be funnier than the comedians. When they all happen within the first ten minutes, it's a little too much to handle. While the last of which is often just down to bad luck, Arcade Arcade's Stranger-er Things has trouble recovering from the blow.

It's not so much due to the show's creators - in fact, Jimmy James Eaton and Jason Geary are total pros of improv comedy - but just that by offering an alt-comedy/sketch show/'80s throwback gig the duo have way too much going on to get things back on track once things go awry. The bouts of their own off-the-cuff remarks are brilliant - making observations quicker than the audience have time to even process what has just happened - but Eaton and Geary get lost down the rabbit hole of fourth wall breaking way too much for the gag to continually pay off.

The whole gig feels like the director's cut of a show lost to the ages, with jokes crammed in just for the sake of appealing to a cult crowd. The repetition is definitely a problem, and sketches run a good three to four minutes beyond a good punchline. There are a couple of truly inspired and fantastic moments of comedy, but when they're buried under a mass of gags about how technology was different 30 years ago they're hard to appreciate.

Arcade Arcade present Stranger-er Things, til Apr 2 at Trades Hall, part of the Melbourne Comedy Festival.