COMEDY: RICKETTS LANE
Anyone who’s ever lived in a sharehouse must surely have, at some point, sat across from their housemate and wondered if they were from another planet. On some particularly bad evenings, the housemate may even have started to morph into some sort of purple monster with bulbous eyes. Or perhaps that’s just me …
Well, imagine, if you will, my joy at discovering that it’s not just me at all. In a most respectable venue – the Sydney Opera House – there will soon be a comedy showcasing precisely what I’ve always suspected: that housemates are, in their very nature, from different worlds.
Winner of the Barry Award for Most Outstanding Show at this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Ricketts Lane stars Sammy J and Randy as two very different housemates with very different pasts.
Reuniting comedian Sammy J with puppeteer Heath McIvor, to bring their latest smash hit show to our city for the very first time, Ricketts Lane is described as a live sitcom with an HBO twist. Blending musical comedy, deft puppetry, and memorable characters, the show, according to Sammy J, “Is essentially the story of Randy and I living together, in a kind of ‘odd couple’ arrangement: the skinny, nerdy tax lawyer, and Randy – the foul-mouthed, drunken house-mate.
“We’re best mates, but we also constantly shit each other – so much like any house-sharing arrangement. The crux of the story is that I discover some skeletons in Randy’s closet and decide to prosecute him for tax fraud, which is a pretty heinous thing to do to your housemate.” Especially if that housemate is a big bit of purple foam.
Nov 11-20, Sydney Opera House, $39, 9250 7777, sydneyoperahouse.com
