BWW Reviews: ADELAIDE FRINGE 2015: THE BUREAU OF COMPLAINTS Really Is A Laughing Matter

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Tuesday 10th February 2015

The Channel Nine Studios in North Adelaide is home to an fully created and well-decorated beer garden, designed by Kathryn Sproul, with a well stocked bar, a Venezuelan food stall, with a range of things that you really should try, and a small stage. The Kevin Crease Studio has also been given over to a group of Fringe performers as their venue for a wide range of productions. At the venue launch, Alirio Zavarce and Matt Crook presented their work, The Bureau of Complaints, an hilarious comedy piece that is partly scripted, but revolves around short segments of video recorded in a booth outside in the garden area by members of the public. These videos are, as the title suggests, all complaints. The set, video and graphic art, a large component of the production, are all by Ian Corcoran.

We all seem to enjoy complaining and we all seem to find plenty of things to complain about. For the purposes of this production, anything goes. No doubt there will myriad complaints about the Australian Prime Minister, the self-proclaimed "suppository of all wisdom", and his mean, but farcical ruling Government. This is only to be expected. At the other end of the spectrum it might be something very personal and even seemingly trival.

What is the point of complaining? Much of the time there is none, other than releasing that internal pressure but, in this case, Zavarce and Crook are listening and, where something can be done about a complaint, they actually intend to take action. The explained that they will be approaching an Adelaide cafe that charges $5 for a cup of tea, nothing more than a tea bag in a cup of hot water with a dash of milk and a spoonful of sugar.

There are also sure to be a goodly number of deliberately comical and facetious complaints, human nature being what it is, and these are sure to be grist to the mill for this dynamic duo. This, of course, means that the show will be constantly changing as each day's batch of complaint videos are watched, edited and assembled for the next performance, meaning that you can go back time and again if you wish.

What, though, is a complaint? How does it differ from a moan, a whine, a whinge, a grizzle, and so on? Being highly intellectual beings, Zavarce and Crook analyse and dissect these, then demonstrate the differences. For some strange reason, this serious part of the evening had the audience in fits of laughter. To be honest, the whole show did that, not only the scripted and ad lib sections of the work from Zavarce and Crook but also including many of the sections featuring the recorded complaints.

Put this performance on your list if you need a really good laugh, or if you want to get something off your chest that has been angering you, recording it for posterity to be aired where you can rest assured that it will not be ignored, although it might be turned into great comic fodder by these highly talented actors.

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