Next time: Cthulhu eats your brain, werewolves eat your heart

 Comedy, Dungeon Crawl  No Responses »
Feb 172012
 

March 7th is a big night at the Bella Union!

First up, our monthly Dungeon Crawl goes on an old-fashioned Cthulhu-style cosmic horror fest in The Dungeon Out of Time that Crawled Beyond Madness! Yes, lock up your Necronomicon, practise your elder sign and beware of bad dreams as Dungeon Crawl goes back to the bad old creepy days of the 1930s. Our hardbitten adventurers think their rational modern view of the world holds all the answers, but will their minds be able to cope with a glimpse of the greater horror of the unknown cosmos? Can they escape the baleful gaze of the bizarre outer gods with their sanity intact?

And, more importantly, can they kill Cthulhu and take his stuff?

Join our guests, including Nick Caddaye, Andy McClelland and Richard Watts (who wrote for the Call of Cthulhu RPG back in the day), as they pit themselves against the eldritch knowledge of Ben McKenzie and the unworldly horror that is Richard McKenzie.

Tickets $15 at the door or $14 (inc. booking fee) online – on sale now.

But wait: there’s more! Dungeon Master Ben McKenzie loves games so much, he’s not just running Dungeon Crawl – he’s also started a new pervasive social games company, Pop Up Playground. Their first public outing is a latish show on Thursdays for Comedy Festival – and you can attend a free trial performance right after the March 7th Dungeon Crawl! The show is a new twist on the game werewolf, in which you form a team with one of five guest comedians to root out the murderous creatures of the night before they kill off the village council. Guests so far confirmed are Richard McKenzie and Andrew McClelland, with more to come. Find out all the details on the Pop Up Playground web site. The show is free, but seats are limited, so if you want to stick around and see this one too, you should definitely book!

The first Dungeon Crawl is away!

 Comedy, Dungeon Crawl  1 Response »
Feb 052011
 
Richard McKenze, Scott Edgar, Geraldine Quinn, Nick Caddaye and Andy McClelland in Dungeon Crawl. Photo by Rob Young.

Yes, on February 2nd, a party of brave adventurers went on a thrilling quest! Here’s a recap of who was there, and what they did.

Nick Caddaye played a mighty, taciturn dragonborn ranger named Pikachu, whose twin weapons were a sword and a beer. Andy McClelland was Gax Garyguy, a minotaur who had given up all ability to navigate labyrinths to be a music promoter with high Charisma and an infinite supply of unwanted promo CDs. Geraldine Quinn was Tmesis (it’s a word – look it up), a half-human, half-horse, half-mathematician cleric who wielded Fowler’s Modern English Usage and a red correcting pen in the name of Mycantor, god of grammar. Finally, Scott Edgar played the dwarven druid Ironbeard Muntingbone, whose special powers were summoning and controlling normal and giant insects, and calling down lightning – though only if sufficient orgasmic energy was available through ancient, orgiastic rites.

These four were recruited by the mayor of the swamp-locked town of Orcfest to find out what happened to their children, who had gone missing. They tracked the children through the swamp, where they defeated a band of kobolds and picked up on the trail of a gelatinous cube, which had been engulfing the children and taking them to its master, an evil cleric trying to raise an army of evil babies – including a baby dragon. Pikachu revealed that he had been searching for this lost wyrmling all along, and despite being horribly wounded, managed to talk it into betraying its master.

Thanks to friend of Shaolin Punk and excellent photographer Robert Young, here are some snaps of the action:

A minotaur gets his horns!
The heroes discuss letting Nick join the party.
Our heroes are recruited to a quest in an Inn.

A mighty (?) kobold confronts our heroes.
Asking a mosquito for help.
Baby dragon betrayal!


The next Dungeon Crawl is at the Bella Union on March 2nd; watch this space for line-up announcements soon!

Set List jazz: The Dancin’ Pandas

 Comedy  No Responses »
Oct 082008
 

Set List returned on Saturday with a set from jazz legends the Dancin’ Pandas, featuring the smooth musical stylings of Brent Strahan, Matt Mulcahy and Emma Muiznieks, directed by band leader “Marching Band” McKenzie, and starring the vocal, guitar, harmonica and keyboard talents of “Guava” Muiznieks, “Smooth Dan” Walmsley and “Moldova” McClelland. They played hits from their forty year history including the unforgettable ensemble numbers “The River” – a gospel song in which the protagonists took a cheese plate, a fishing rod, a riubber duck and a pantomime horse down to the river – and “Travellin’ Strange”, a blues number describing the joys of travelling via Segway, llama, lava flow and TARDIS.

Set List returns for one final show this Saturday afternoon, 4:30 in the Old Council Chambers, when an as yet unannounced rock band will take the stage and blow your mind. Be there!

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