This is the 1st time I’ve seen Mark do a full show, last time I was in Melbourne he had unfortunately (for me) sold out his run. So my only experience of him was from brief spots @ the Hifi in the early hours of the morning, tv and You Tube excerpts and his hilarious radio program. So i wasn’t sure what to expect. Especially when he came out before the show, sat at a table with a laptop and started typing away with a projector behind him. I thought ‘ahh, it will be a Dave Gorman type show with a presentation’. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Mark Watson performance has the ambience of  listening to a mate at the pub tell a funny story to a small (ok 200) group of friends. He has a very affable approach and a very laid back style, but don’t let that fool you. His jokes are very clever, well written and rehearsed. A true professional. However he does allow variations in his routine depending on his mood, hence the more ‘casual chat’ feel to his material. This evening involved guessing which state of the US a member of the audience came from to illustrate to us Aussies how one of his heroes (a John Edwards type psychic) operates. Most comedians couldn’t pull that off. But Watson had punters leaning forward in their chairs as he was rattling off names and a big cheer erupted when a member of the audience guessed right, stealing his glory (Still not sure whether the cheer was for the punter getting it right, Mark saying it a split second after the punter, or cheering the fact that he know all 50 states).

Commenting on being a man and a (fairly new) dad had smirks and giggles around the crowd as he certainly hit the nail on the head with the topic. His self-deprecating style certainly resonated with the audience in his own misfortunes and inadequacies as there were a lot of self-knowing nods around the crowd (myself included) as he spoke of his life. There is a serious side to his comedy, his aim in life does seem to be to make this world a better place (those in the know of his famous 24 hour show and radio series would agree) and he gives advice from his own experiences on how to do so. A bit left of field, but the ideas certainly work.

Honestly, Mark Watson could run commentary on washing drying and it would still be riveting and hilarious. His up-beat, energetic style has that effect on you

And I have to admit, the kangaroo gag. Best. Gag. Ever. Though you really had to be there.

And Liam Nolan better watch his back. There’s another 200 odd people out there who know who you are.

Drama Series.
Heart says Dexter but it could lose against the powerhouse that is Mad Men, not to mention that people are vamping it up left right and centre. I think there is a slight chance Lost will win only for the fact that the series has ended.

Comedy Series
As much as I hate to admit it, Glee has it in the bag, it such a phenomenon nothing can come up against it. Office and 30 Rock are normally fighting it out, and also strangely absent is 2 and ½ men, for which I am glad cause that show sucks.

Lead Actor Drama
I seriously believe it is between Bryan Cranston, Michael C Hall and Jon Hamm, again the heart wants Dexter just because season 4 was so creepy, but Bryan could snatch it

Lead Actor Comedy
Really want Jim Parsons (Sheldon in the Big Bang Theory) but I think Glee may again have the upper hand. There is also the contention that both Steve Carrell and Alec Baldwin both announced they were leaving their shows, could push them into a suprise win.

Lead Actress Comedy
Lea Michele does not deserve to win. It will be a fight between Toni Collette and Tina Fey. I think 3^rd in line could be Julia Louis-Dreyfus but only as a sentimental choice since her show got cancelled.

Supporting Actor, Comedy
Seriously. NPH all the way. God I love that man.

Supporting Actress, Comedy
Not a huge fan of the show but a huge fan of Jane Lynch from her work with Christopher Guest and in the 40 year old virgin. She will piss it in (in a manner of speaking)

Supporting Actor, Drama
I think it will be Lost on this, creepy Michael or Terry O Quinn. though Martin Short in a dramatic role could see an upset

Supporting Actress, Drama
Christina Hendricks by a cup size (or two) over Rose Byrne

Best Miniseries.
The Pacific, not only really well done but now that Bill Hunter has run out of Aussie tv’s/movies to appear in, he’s started appearing on the yanks.

Lead Actor, TV Movie/Miniseries.
Haven’t seen any of them but the crowd favourite will be Jeff Bridges riding on his Oscar win or obviously Pacino. Though i am really really pissed that Patrick Stewart got a nod for Hamlet, but David Tennant didn’t.

Lead Actress, Tv movie
Hard one, Dame Maggie Smith against Dame Judi Dench. Really can’t pick between the 2.

Supporting Actress/TV Movie or Miniseries
i’m going John Goodman, mainly cause he’s awesome.

Guest Actor in a comedy
Neil Patrick Harris by a long shot and spiffy suit.

Guest Actor in a drama
John Lithgow in dexter, his ass alone scared me anough

Guest Actress in a comedy
It will be down to Kristen Chenoweth, Jane Lynch and Betty White. Badass Bitch Betty is the crowd favourite since her new show just got renewed.

Guest Actress in a drama
if sissy spacek is in a category, sissy specek will win it (though lily tomlin could be an upset)

Reality host
Jeff Probst, when hasn’t he won it?

Reality TV Competition
Amazing Race yet again

Reailty Program

Hoping for Jamie Oliver, dear lord please don’t let Kathy Griffin win.

Best Variety/Music or Comedy Series

Tie between Colbert and Jon Stewart, kinda the same really and we all know they will both be on stage no matter who wins. That’s what counts

Variety Music or Comedy Special
Really want Robin Williams to win, but i think Hope for Haiti will be the logical choice.

Special Class Progams
Don’t know, don’t care

Childrens Programs
I think Hannah Montana has had her time in the sun, now it will be the Jonas brothers

Non fiction series
deadliest catch, watch it or they’ll give you crabs

non fiction special
it will either be the black president or the gay crossdressing comedian. Tough choice

Voiceover artist.
I would love Seth Green, but come on, he’s up against Homer Simpson himself.

Animated program
Simpsons have lost their edge, last season of south park – fucking hilarious.

Short-Format Animated Program
Robot Chicken

Everything else will be between glee, pacific and mad men. Hopefully dexter and big bang can pull a couple more out

this explains a lot. Also amazed that he managed to keep it out of the media for so long, surprised no one spilt the goss.

but this has devastated the fan-girl crazy stalker girls who were convinced they broke up due to the sexual tension of the trio. no doubt there will be some fan slash written about this as well

I love them, the worse the better. They are clichéd, over the top, badly acted, and that’s exactly why I love them.

For a good disaster movie you have to stick to the formula. To survive a disaster movie, like the Scream franchise, there are some rules to follow.

• Mother Earth hates us, and will constantly try to kill us. accept it and move on.
• The first 20 minutes (or in 2012′s case – 40) will be normal and boring. Then you will start to die.
• As Sydnerati pointed out recently,  animals will not die, there are heaps of disaster movies where the dog survives at the last possible second without even a singed hair, where people burn to death. Sydnerati made mention of the dog from Independence day but there are plenty more. In Dante’s Peak the dog somehow manages to dodge the molten lava engulfing the entire mountain and manage to jump into a fast-moving truck with zero visibility. and the rat dog thing in 2012 lived too. So when in doubt, follow the pooch, they will get you to the other side.
• If you’re a deadbeat dad, get yourself in a disaster, it worked for John Cusack and Tom Cruise (War of the Worlds) to make your kids love u again, and possibly hit that one more time with your ex.
• Stay away from national monuments and major cities, if every movie has taught you anything, is that the Opera House, Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty are disaster magnets.
• Actually just stay out of New York altogether. You will die – Opening scene in Armageddon (which was later edited to remove imagery of the Twin Towers burning), The Day after tomorrow, Cloverfield, NYC – Tornado Terror (yes it is a real movie).
• Natural Disasters occur anywhere, anytime, so be prepared. You could be standing on Uluru in the middle of the outback and be wiped out by a tsunami.
• Before Obama – the only time black guys got to be president was in disaster movies or 24 (and he died in that too). Danny Glover and Morgan Freeman couldn’t save us. Morgan Freeman played god and he still couldn’t save us. And was anyone else hoping throughout the whole of 2012 that Danny would say he was too old for that shit?
• When in doubt – get someone from Baywatchto be a scientist.
• Never look behind you – whenever you do, you then see the giant 300 foot wave of shit coming to kill you and you will try to run (usually down a lane of cars in New York) but it will be too late and you will be a) engulfed in a giant fireball/wall of water or b) hit by a flying car (normally a yellow cab)
• Always listen to the scientist, not the government, the government will kill us all by ignoring all scientific evidence handed to them and decide to throw bombs at whatever’s coming at them. (interesting side-note, apart from the bombs part, this actually happened during the Boxing Day Tsunami, the governments were warned months in advance, even up to days before, they blew off the scientist as a loon).
• Randy Quaid will normally die saving the world
• At some point you will have to run/drive/fly away from the disaster. At the very last second, you will make it, so chill.
• There will be a speech about how great it is to be American. All well and good unless you’re not American, then you are probably a terrorist. Best not to voice that you’re not a Yank cause they carry guns. Them bitches are crazy.
• Stay away from morally corrupt people – they will die in spectacular fashion and u don’t want to get splattered with their guts.
  - Robert Wagner in towering Inferno
  - Russian dude in 2012
• Darryl Hannah now looks like John Travolta. No real story here, I watched Hurricane Hunter the other night and I happened to notice it.

But you can’t help but love Jason, he’s just like an Irish overexcited puppy and possibly the poster child for ADHD.

Now imagine if you will that Ross Noble and the Boosh’s Noel Fielding had a baby. Combine Ross’ quick wit, energy, and ability to improv with Noel’s absurdity, fashion sense and hair, have them raise the child in Essex and you have Russell Kane. Whatever you do don’t give that man any red cordial, he’s active enough as it is (and bendy). A sniper couldn’t track him he’s bounding around so much on stage.

After spending a fair chunk of time talking with the audience (which can often fall flat, but luckily didn’t), Kane moved onto other issues, not necessarily cutting edge areas, but amusing none the less. Like many comedians Kane relied heavily on staple topics to keep the Aussies amused. Working Class Vs Upper Class, Men Vs women, Brits Vs Aussies, Aussies Vs Kiwi’s, being caught wanking, backing some of these up with news reports and flitting back and forth between low-brow & sophisticated humour.

The low-brow definitely won over the audience (many holding beers walking into the room). But his scattered approach was rather hit and miss though he managed to hold it all together with his boundless energy and use of accents (though he does need to work on the Kiwi one slightly). When he was on the mark, his observations were rather astute, when he misfires (such as suggesting Australia doesn’t have a binge drinking culture) he was able to move on quickly before the audience really had a time to react. He is constantly throwing the crowd curveballs bouncing from the use of the word ‘cunt’ in a sentence to a cerebral observation of the changing nature of men growing up in society today.

so many things to be angry at with this whole Hey Dad! scandal. Child abuse. The fact that they kept it quiet for so long. And the fact that it has now gone global and people think Hey Dad! is the best sitcom Australia has ever produced.

Child abuse is not funny. Never has been, never will be. But Aussies tend to handle difficult situations a bit differently, we make fun of something to ease our uncomfort at the issue. Hence when a search on twitter comes up, you are bombarded with Hey Dad! jokes.

note  no one is making fun of the victims, people are making fun of the show as a way of discussing it. No one’s mentioned this excruciatingly sweet sitcom for a decade, no one even really admits to ever watching it (I did once, as a girl I was friends with was on an episode as Jenny’s friend). so the dust will be blown off all the old jokes. and at the moment, it is all alleged, it is far easier to make fun of someone whose allegedly a paedo than one who is. how many jokes do you see around about Dennis Ferguson? I can guarantee you that if these allegations are true, apart from some witty headlines during the court case, the jokes will stop.

It’s the comedy equivalent of ‘hey look over there’ and running away.

His poem’s are strangely appealing, relying heavily on the audience knowledge of the English language, his poems are little snippets of life, captured in a tiny notebook with a slightly distorted outlook on the world.

Reminded me a bit of John Hegley, you know the guy with the glasses who did the bit ‘I need you’ years ago on the gala with a mandolin. remember? and he did the bit amen, surely that would be a man or some men. Also a touch of the David O’Doherty’s and rather Boosh-esque (is that a word? is now).

I think a lot of people were confused by his style, tittering mostly at first rather than actual laughing, and i think a show starting at 10pm made the audience either come in slightly drunk or in my case slightly half asleep. but it was rather funny. don’t really think the show was worth being nominated for a Perrier (I know they aren’t called that but i can never remember the name, Perrier always means more in my head).

It wasn’t till we were almost there that I clicked where I knew him from, he worked on mark Watson’s radio bit ‘mark Watson makes the world substantially better’ that i downloaded from iTunes recently. So most Australians wouldn’t know who he was, I’m assuming he was working the sydney festival as a lead-in to MICF. I believe he will go down well across the border, The more absurdist satirists such as Sam Simmons and The Bedroom Philosopher have quite a cult following for a reason.

It’s not that i don’t like you Scrubs, I really do, I used to love you in fact. You were one of the first things my now partner and I realised we had in common and we spent hours having scrubs marathons as each new box set came out (since our local TV stations were crap and put you on at midnight and bounced you around, it was the best way to watch you). So believe me when I say that this comes from love. You suck.Your new spin-off sucks.

What happened to you Scrubs? You used to be funny and witty and whimsical and now, well now you are just sad and pathetic & trying too hard. No Janitor, Ted, Carla, Elliott, Doug & now JD (and very little The Todd)? True Dr Cox & Turk are da bomb but it’s not enough, we need the dynamic of the whole group. We need Turk struggling between being an adult with responsibilities and goofing around with JD, We need someone for Perry to hate but secretly love. We need the Janitor causing mayhem and the girls bossing people around and being paranoid.

They are no longer well written, much loved characters, they are parodies, exaggerations, merely caricatures of those characters. And that makes them despicable. You didn’t even keep the funny interns, you got new annoying ones. you should have just let it go at season 8. it tied everything up so neatly at the end and with a beautiful montage on the sheet. It was time. we all accepted that and were prepared to let go. It was time to ‘pull the plug on nanna’ so to speak, but instead you cut out her insides, took out the good bits and stuffed her back up with gauze to fill the gaps.

Knocking down sacred heart and building a giant teaching hospital that happens to the bigger than the original hospital space? Puh-lease. You could have just said that ‘we started teaching at a nearby university’. Would have made more sense

And where the hell is Jordan? i forgot about her. And when did Turk start dressing like Bill Cosby? what’s with the plaid shirts?

Oh and the inner monologue is JD’s thing. Apart from a couple of exceptions, it’s always been JD’s thing, it adds to his character. Now the new intern seems to have it as well and it just doesn’t work. i know its part of the transition between JD leaving but once its gone, it should be gone altogether. Scrubs was always JD’s story from mostly his perspective.

And for those who were wondering, the Sacred Heart set (North Hollywood Medical Center in the San Fernando Valley in California) is still around, intact, it featured in one of the last episodes of United States of Tara.

No longer a lot of love

Unfrufru