Viki Moananu and Alayne Dick are ready to have a one-hour gossip session and we are invited. We Need To Talk is described as “your messy group chat come to life, where everyone gets unhinged nicknames and we talk trash while also being deeply serious… there will be crowd work and it will be chill.”

As people enter The Stage at BATS Theatre, they see a QR code on a big screen with instructions on joining a group chat and making a nickname. Dick and Moananu are already chatting in the group from backstage and asking for audience reactions such as cheers, with audience members asking for reactions in return.

We are randomly conversing in the chat as we wait for the show to start, and some of the nicknames are indeed unhinged. We have a jonny-pisshands, LezzyMcguire, and something with skux in it, to name a few.

Comically, the standard Comedy Festival voiceover telling us to turn off our phones etc plays and someone in the chat suggests that we should probably keep our phones out to participate in the chat.

Dick and Moananu come out full of beans, and ready to get the party started! They understand that comedians are scary people so they made the group chat for if we wanted to say anything without having to do it face to face.

The show has a chaotic energy right from the start and it keeps coming as we are treated to some stories from both comedians that definitely have us feeling some different emotions.

Confidence and connection are what they want us to have tonight and since they are both very confident individuals, they are going to teach us how to get both those things in 5 steps.

Crowd work is a key part of this show, getting people up to help them connect. The idea is that people who don’t know each other will go up, but at this point it is hard to find people in the audience who do not already know each other, especially when a local comedian is one of the people picked, but we eventually find someone.

Throughout the show the group chat is great, it is random, slowly getting more manic and causing people to yell out their feelings on things being said. Sometimes the chat is up on the big screen which is handy for someone in the crowd who couldn’t get it to work on their phone.

I love this premise of the group chat because every night will be different based on the audience and their vibes.

Occasionally Dick and Moananu give prompts for the chat to get to know us better. This draws people back to it, if they have been focused on the comedians and not their phones.

One such prompt sparks a mini war between 2 people in the audience on the group chat as one of them baits the other in the chat. They are friends so it is all in jest, but it is great and the fact they are on separate sides of the split in seating makes it funnier as they start yelling about it to each other.

We are now having an intense Gilmore Girls chat which is completely off topic but Dick and Moananu, being the professionals they are, have followed along and start to ask the crowd about the messages and to fill them in on context, characters, and why people are writing what they are. Being able to skillfully take from the chat, no matter how random it is and how often it rapidly changes subjects, to make sure they are on the same page as their audience, is what really makes this show work.

No spoilers here but be prepared for sock puppets, so simple yet so much fun!

In their promos on Instagram, Dick and Moananu have promised to go through people’s phones and they deliver on this promise, though don’t worry it is completely voluntary. Be prepared for them to search and roast all aspects of your phone, no app or folder is safe (Pokémon apps and finance folders for example).

As the show is coming to a close, the energy is not, with Dick getting more and more hyperactive as it goes on. Moananu is a bit more subdued, making him the calm to the Dick storm, though he can still be chaotic at times which ensures they work so perfectly together.

This show is vulnerable, unhinged, fun, and quite frankly a huge ball of mayhem, but that is what makes it so wonderful! If you don’t mind connecting with randoms, sharing passions and qualms, literally having your conversation on display, all while laughing so hard it hurts, then this is the show for you.

I don’t know if I will ever be in a group chat quite like the one that We Need To Talk has provided, but that’s the beauty of it.

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