IAN D MONTFORT: UNBELIEVABLE

Q Theatre Loft, 305 Queen St, Auckland

13/05/2014 - 17/05/2014

BUSKERS BOUTIQUE, Old Boy’s Theatre, Christ’s College, Christchurch

15/01/2015 - 24/01/2015

Foxglove Queens Wharf Ballroom, 33 Queens Wharf, Wellington

06/05/2014 - 10/05/2014

NZ International Comedy Festival 2014

World Buskers Festival 2015 | SCIRT

Production Details



LOVED (AND LAUGHED AT) BY SKEPTICS AND BELIEVERS 

Tom Binns has done the impossible. He’s created a Psychic who appeals to skeptics and believers in equal measure. Weaving quick-witted improvisation, totally immersive character comedy and metaphysical magic, his character, Ian D Montfort, will reveal all in Wellington (May 6 – 10) and Auckland (May 13 – 17) as part of the 2014 NZ International Comedy Festival.

Taking character comedy to a higher level in a performance that parodies the elusive spirit medium profession, Binns is not only funny but also surprisingly impressive. His ability to ad-lib and remain in character never fails to astonish audiences as he delivers jaw-dropping messages from beyond the grave.

The laughs come thick and fast as the audience howls with laughter and recognition. It goes beyond satire as Binns artfully reads members of the audience, revealing their deepest, darkest secrets.

Writer, actor, stand-up comic, TV presenter and radio host, Tom Binns is a two-time Adelaide Fringe Comedy Award Nominee, an Edinburgh Comedy Award Nominee and was Best International Act at the New Zealand Comedy Festival 2013. This is his second NZ International Comedy Festival.

CRITICAL PRAISE FOR TOM BINNS:

“Intelligent, magical, fantastically original and funny enough to kill you from asphyxiation” The Magic Circle Magazine

***** a spookily skilful, wonderfully observed and hysterically funny character who contacts dead celebrities with incredible results.” – Time Out, London.

***** Telegraph

As part of the 2014 NZ International Comedy Festival in cahoots with Old Mout Cider, grab some mates and join us for a great night of laughs from 24 April – 18 May.

For the full Comedy Fest show line-up head to comedyfestival.co.nz

WELLINGTON
Dates: Tue 6 May – Sat 10 May, 7pm
Venue: Foxglove Ballroom, 57 Customhouse Quay
Tickets: $22 – $27
Bookings: 0800 TICKETEK (842 538) // ticketek.co.nz

AUCKLAND
Dates: Tue 13 – Sat 17 May, 7.15pm
Venue: Loft at Q Theatre, 305 Queen St
Tickets: $22 – $27
Bookings: 09 309 9771 // qtheatre.co.nz

SEE TOM BINNS IN ACTION: http://vimeo.com/66546995

2015

15-24 Jan, 7.30pm
BUSKERS BOUTIQUE, Old Boy’s Theatre, Christ’s College,
The Bedford @ CPIT 
60 mins 

http://www.worldbuskersfestival.com/the-ian-d-montford-show 




1hr

Provokes fits of astounded laughter

Review by Erin Harrington 17th Jan 2015

While the World Buskers Festival caters to those who love cabaret, carnies and comedy, it also has something for those who wish to tap into a higher plane. Enter Ian D Montfort, a kaftan-wearing, sandal-clod soft-spoken, mincing Northern psychic who is here to embrace the believers and challenge the skeptics by facilitating dialogue with restless spirits from the other side, reading our auras, and revealing people’s darkest secrets.

The show is a satirical takedown of all manner of pseudoscientific and supernatural claptrap, from spiritualists and tarot card readers to homeopaths and celebrity psychics, but it’s made all the better by the fact that the feats of mentalism are outstanding.

There is a degree of audience interaction, but this isn’t aggressive or confronting. A particularly game ‘volunteer’ in the front row – identified early on as a skeptic with ‘lovely energy’ by Montfort – becomes the target of an ongoing set of psychic rumblings that have an hilarious payoff near the end of the show. 

UK comic, writer, actor and broadcaster Tom Binns, Montfort’s ‘other’ face, won the best international act at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival in 2013 and with good reason. Feats of mentalism aside, this show is a superlative hour of comedy and improv. Binns quickly responds to, and incorporates, offers and reactions from those audience members who are the recipients of messages from the ‘other side’, and the gentle self-effacing nature of his character belies the control that he has over the performance. 

I’m one of those jerks who often sits there trying to figure out how the rabbit got in the hat but in this instance the tricks, the atmosphere and the character are all so immersive and satisfying that I really don’t want to know. Instead I’m happy in the knowledge that Ian D Montfort wipes the floor with the sort of people who, well-meaning or otherwise, make their living off of the vulnerability and incredulity of others, all while provoking people into fits of astounded laughter. Must see.

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A terrifically hilarious and polished hour

Review by Stephen Austin 14th May 2014

Ian D Montfort is a professional psychic from Sunderland, not to be confused with the psycho from the same place, where he helped the police to locate at least eight victims’ bodies. He has set out on a world tour to confound sceptics and help those in need of bringing out secrets. 

Rather than speaking to loved ones dear to us, he communes with spirits we don’t know and makes connections sure to astound and flummox even the most unbelieving. 

As we’re taking our seats, an usher is asking anyone who would like to, to write down a secret on a piece of paper and keep it to themselves, to be used in the show.  When Montford appears, they’re asked to pop the notes in a collection box which are then transferred to a fishbowl at side of stage. 

Without ever picking up a single one of those papers, he proceeds to pepper his show with the secrets submitted.  How on earth does he do it [insert big winky emoticon here]? 

He has several ‘gifts’ that he’s keen to share with us, all the while trying to placate the cynical side of the audience’s nature, from straight-out guess-work to investigative questioning, to Viking Bones and Tarot Cards. 

A campy northerner in sandals and white muslin attire, Montford is played by Tom Binns with a controlled earnestness that obscures a sheer glee for indirectly denouncing frauds and sham carny types that still persist in our popular culture. 

He perfectly captures that false professionalism spouted by those looking to make a quick buck from the easily fooled. 

The show is bookended with intentionally swift disclaimers about the nature of the material on offer here, which if you’re too busy fiddling with your refreshments or car keys you’ll miss: all part of the sleight-of-hand on show here. 

His lines of questioning with willing (and sometimes unwilling) audience members are just vague enough to prove his ultimate point: that around about 85% of these kind of ‘real’ psychic performances are based on guesswork, assumptions or well observed body language. 

When he gets predictions wrong the edges are fudged with a slightly pointed vagueness to bring his point home and to drive the comedy to a higher place. 

A terrifically hilarious and polished hour of audience misdirection, with a big dollop of improvised innuendo and solid dash of the anarchic at its core.

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