Comedy Review - Snake Pit: Cold-Blooded
Images courtesy of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Sponsored by Fireball™
In a small little pit in the basement of a Collingwood bar towards the bottom end of Smith Street lays the current home of two very funny snakes.
In matching clothes and with a well-rehearsed theme song, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’ve stumbled into the bedroom of a 1980s pre-teen slumber party. Until they start talking about cunts, the dangers of 12-inch penises and the tasteful black and white nudes that Scott Morrison shares with Angela Merkel. Blurring the lines between educational and downright deranged is Maddie Houlbrook-Walk and John Robles’ Snake Pit: Cold Blooded; a one-hour extravaganza of improvisational comedy.
With the talent of Lady Gaga before she got famous (to quote the two performers), these two will lead you down a rabbit hole of chaos to the point where you may feel as if you’ve entered a lucid dream-like state. Here you will be taught valuable life lessons, such as succubi being the correct plural of succubus and what exactly the 2022 Australian budget will give people (more out of touch politician 'advice').
The former 2018 Theatre Sydney Smackdown Championship winners work well off each other, effortlessly sliding in and out of different characters and scenes, each more bizarre than the next. You can truly see why they’ve been such an accomplished duo since 2017. And accomplished they are, having travelled the world to study comedy in places as remote and exotic as Chicago. The two are regular weekly headliners for the Stand Out Comedy Club back in Sydney, and recently performed in Victoria's Midsumma Festival aka Australia’s biggest LGBTIQ+ cultural event.
The two snake charmers directly interacted with the audience throughout their entire performance, doing shots with those of us who gave them word suggestions (shout out to the lovely owner of Lantern Lounge for providing these). Despite being Sydneysiders it’s impossible to dislike the charismatic performers, who sucked us into their intimate sphere of chaos and made sure we left satisfied. Not all improv scenes are made equal, with some outshining the others, particularly in the first half, but all demonstrating the quick wit, knowledge and talent of the two stars.
Most importantly, they’re open to feedback, earnestly asking midway for the audience’s input on what they would like more of, and proceeding to actually take that feedback on board and improvise accordingly. Some scenes are by no means clean, but in improv, it seems that they tend to be the funniest.
It’s hard to review improv as the show I saw will never be seen again, so to ensure you don’t miss out on anything be sure to buy tickets to every single one of their shows. Be prepared for gay jokes (it’s okay they’re gay), character breaking, accents (request the medieval British one), possibly a lot of genitalia-based comedy, and audience interaction (but not the scary kind). The beauty of improv is that you, as the audience, get to help shape the scene, and what a delight that is when the scene is acted out by this pair.
Cold-Blooded is showing at the Lantern Lounge - Basement Black Box Theatre, Collingwood as part of the 2022 Melbourne International Comedy Festival between the 30th of March and the 10th of April. For tickets and more info, click here.