The Big HOO-HAA! Pōneke
Fringe Bar, 26-32 Allen St, Te Aro, Wellington
16/02/2024 - 18/02/2024
Production Details
Director: Jennifer O'Sullivan
Producer: Elliott Lam
Designer: Matt Powell
Locomotive
Start your Fringe the HOO-HAA! way with a weekend of hilarious, competitive improv. The Hearts stand valiant in one corner. The Bones hunger for glory in the other. You, the audience, decide the champion. But hey, the points are made up and everyone’s having a great time!
The Big HOO-HAA! is a competitive improv comedy show founded in Perth in 2002. The Big HOO-HAA! then arrived in Melbourne in July 2010 where it quickly became the go-to for audiences seeking a riotous alternative to traditional comedy nights. Now, it’s arrived in Wellington to glowing reviews.
, Fringe Festival 2024
Dates: 9:00pm: 16, 17, 18 Feb 2024
Venue: The Fringe Bar
Tickets: https://www.fringe.co.nz/show/the-big-hoo-haa-pneke
More Info: thebighoohaa.nz, fringe.co.nz
Austin Harrison, Elliott Lam, Gab Raz, Guanny Liu-Prosee, Greg Ellis, Jed Davies, Jennifer O'Sullivan, Jonny Paul, Malcolm Morrison, Matt Hutton, Matt Powell, Samuel Irwin, Simran Rughani, and Steven Youngblood
Theatre , Improv , Comedy ,
90 Minutes
Fantastic improv performers at the top of their game
Review by Emma Maguire 21st Feb 2024
The Big Hoo-Haa! is a show I always try to get along to when it’s on in Pōneke. A perfect improv format for newcomers, or for those who are into fast-paced, competitive shows with lots of silliness, this ninety-minute show pits teams Hearts (dressed in red) and Bones (dressed in black) against each other in a series of games, challenges and improv mayhem.
Our performers tonight are Guanny Liu-Prosee and Simran Rughani (the Hearts), Greg Ellis and Steven Youngblood (the Bones), Matt Powell as our indomitable MC and Lia Kelly underscores the whole show wonderfully on the keyboard.
Springing into the show with some exuberant crowd work by Matt, we’re off on a whistlestop tour of all things improv. Simran and Guanny delight with a switching-between-characters scene about a parent and child, and Greg and Steven tackle a modern political monologue – delivered by a Shakespearean character.
The teams unite for the epic improvised musical Fountain!, which features my favourite kind of improv game – performers setting up lead-ins to songs, and only a few of them becoming songs themselves; keeping us all on tenterhooks the entire time. With some wonderful improvised singing, the improvisers build a fountain (with Simran featuring as the singing centrepiece) as a monument to lost love. It’s a triumphant end to the first half of the show.
The chaos resumes after the break. What I really love about the Big Hoo-Haa! Pōneke is that we get to see fantastic performers at the top of their game in a variety of different characters and locales. You never know quite what to expect with a show like this, and that’s the beauty of it. It’s a grab-bag of talent and skill, all packaged neatly into a very tight format.
The Hearts take out the show in the end, to cheers and applause. What a wonderful night out!
Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer
Comments