Comedy Festival 2018: Lano and Woodley ridiculously funny and idiotic in Fly ★★★★½

HOLD on to your aching sides, because Lano and Woodley are still ridiculously funny and idiotic in Fly, their much-anticipated reunion show.

GET ready to hold on to your aching sides, because Lano and Woodley are still ridiculously funny and idiotic in Fly, their much-anticipated reunion show after 12 years apart.

Colin (Lano) is determined to stage a serious bit of theatre, a play about the flying Wright brothers, but Frank (Woodley) keeps tilting the show into the stupid, silly nonsense for which Lano and Woodley are renowned, and which the crowd is slavering to see.

LANO & WOODLEY BUZZING IN MICF RETURN

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In front of a gloriously complex wall of geometric design (Charles Davis), eclectic projections (Neil Sanderson) and exploding lights (Verity Hampson), this beloved comic duo frolics from one madcap idea to another, creating their signature style of comedy mayhem.

Wearing a smoking jacket and tasseled hat, Colin narrates his play like an earnest BBC host, but repeatedly interrupting his artsy plan are bursts of electrocution, silly songs about the Wright brothers’ dead boring lives, or spontaneously erupting tunes from The Lion King.

Lano and Woodley make a triumphant retunr in Fly.

Meanwhile, Frank keeps hilariously, and possibly unintentionally, sabotaging Colin’s arty ambitions, by deviating from the script with references to the duo’s break-up, the Jeff Goldblum film, The Fly, and other horror movies that he recreates with spooky sound effects from the audience.

LANO AND WOODLEY MAGIC GOES ON

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Lano and Woodley’s slapstick comedy is almost vaudevillian in style, and they are masters of cunning reincorporation, hilarious put-downs, and the endless postponement of gags and payoffs, all of which have the audience cheering and howling with laughter.

There’ll be no more spoilers here, but it is hard to spoil such an eccentric, screwball performance by two of our greatest virtuosos of comedy. Welcome back, lads!

Lano and Woodley, Fly

Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne, until April 22 (return season at Hamer Hall, Aug 10 & 11).

comedyfestival.com.au