Terrible Ideas is a good one: get a panel of comedy-type actors to share “the worst, wildest and weirdest” ideas they’ve ever had, interrogate them, play with them a bit then get the audience to vote on the best worst idea and give the winner a minute to close the show. 

Jarrod Baker and Jonny Potts host Terrible Ideas and welcome a new trio of guests each night – see www.badideas.co.nz to check who’s coming up. As with improv, nothing will be repeated – including the hosts’ contributions, I’m told – so there is no danger of spoilers as I indicate the sort of fare this involves.

Jonny Potts’ terrible idea is to attempt to overcome his inability to cry on stage by using Kate Bush singing ‘Hound of Love’ as a stimulant – twice. That it nearly kills the show before it really starts proves his point – and there is the genius of the concept: the worse it is the more it succeeds. In principle.

Mind you, when Eamonn Marra sets out to identify everyone in his audience who is not like him and tell us/them we/they are not allowed to laugh at any of his jokes, because we/they are higher achievers than him in every respect, it’s very funny. His impersonations of ‘people he’s not’ is icing on the proverbial cake. Something profound about how humour works is accessed here.

Alice May Connolly’s first terrible idea is to add lemonade to her red wine. (“What is that?” she asks later. “Ribena,” the wit beside her quips.) She refers back to her teenage notebooks to fulfil her brief. Although her best worst idea is clearly the one about two students at Otago Medical School falling in love with a female cadaver “in very different ways”, she opts for a rather touching little tale about two birds nesting for the substantive part of per presentation. Had she linked it to her plan to exploit a natural disaster by getting her audience to empathise with characters before killing them off in said disaster, it might have flown ‘on topic’.

(By the way, Eamonn’s show, Respite, directed by Alice May, opens tonight.)

Jarrod Baker grabs his moment before the third guest’s spot to pitch his idea for a remake of The Amazing Race where Phil Keoghan is replaced by The Kurgan from the film Highlander. This allows him to parade ‘the voice’, which goes down well.  

When James Nokise steps up, it’s his third gig for the night, following his Big Words solo show and his cameo in PSA: Who Dunne It? As up to the mark as ever, he now reveals the cringe-worthy choices he made on his rite-of-passage odyssey from naïve Hutt Valley boy to the inner sanctum of Wellington Comedy, a while back now. His entertaining tales peak with his terrible idea to enrol his comedy mates in posing for a ‘Laugh at Life’ calendar to support the Yellow Ribbon Youth Suicide campaign.  

Nokise gets my vote for the best bad idea but the audience chooses Connolly and she closes the show by reciting another from her treasure-trove to Baker’s ukulele accompaniment.

Apparently the unnecessary use of microphones is because the shows are recorded but I’m not sure of their destination. Is this a Terrible Idea too? Probably not but the in-theatre amplification could be toned down a bit (is it relevant to suggest the control box is not the best place from which to set sound levels?)  Meanwhile I’d suggest it’s a Good Idea to go to Terrible Ideas. I imagine The Kurgan promoting the show on radio as, “When terrible ideas turn good …” 

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