The Mind Diddlers Present: A Special Spectacular Spectacle is a sketch comedy show that has been clearly influenced by the work and the aesthetic of Picnicface, but hasn’t figured out how to make it work yet.
There are some kernels of creative ideas that have the makings for strong sketch comedy here, such as a girl trying to escape being stuck in a literal Film Noir Life and a man struggling against his body’s Benjamin Buttoning. The question for the Mind Diddlers is why are we being shown these sketches? What are they trying to impart on their audience? Although often sketch comedy seems to hinge on the random and the Absurd and often can be a celebration of the stupid, the most successful sketches have an over-arching message. It is the familiarity of that message to the audience, its ringing true for us, that makes us laugh. There are stand up sets inter-spliced between the sketches, and all four comedians could benefit from tightening up the arc and the punch lines to their jokes.
I felt like this show was a gathering of comedy raw materials- each comedian brought a myriad of different tools to the show with the potential to be funny, but instead of honing and building something new with these materials they just threw them all into a pile and said to the audience, “Look! Funny things! TA-DA!”
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The Mind Diddlers Present: A Special Spectacular Spectacle plays at the Neptune Scotiabank Studio (1593 Argyle Street) as part of the Atlantic Fringe Festival at the following times:
Sept 7 – 8:30pm.
Tickets are $5.00 and are available in advance online at this website or 30 minutes before each show at the venue on the day of the performance. All tickets bought in person must be purchased with either cash or credit. For more information please visit this website or call 902.422.7604 between 10:00am and 5:00pm.
