Words Oliver Smith
It’s that time of year again folks; the NZ International Comedy Festival, a month dedicated to chuckles, giggles and belly laughs. It was fairly clear skies, lightly overcast with a pleasant temperature of 18ºC with little threat of rain. It was this pleasant Friday night that I made my way down to the Q Theatre Cellar to see Tallflower, the debut solo show of Aiken Hutcheson.
The room was standard fair, a mic and a stool, classic stand up fittings, indicating this was to be a pure hour of stand up, and the creativity was to be weaved through the spoken word, a suspicion that was proved right more or less from the get go.
The theme of the night was creativity, Aiken is certainly quite a creative comedian. He started with self deprecating remarks about himself, and became acquainted with the audience with his own unique brand of audience interaction questions, to humorous effect and to establish his own sense of social awkwardness.
The bulk of his show was an examination of Aiken’s life as a tall and socially awkward man, in this Aiken enthralled us with observations, storytelling and smatterings of social commentary, with the occasional whimsical tangent. His perspective was certainly refreshing, as regaled us with his take on gym paper towels, the implications of cat calling and who should be allowed to have pockets, as well as his own experiences socially and romantically as a socially awkward and in his own words “gangly.” man.
Tallflower was an enjoyable way to quick off the month ahead. It was a creative hour of comedy, with the highs and lows one would expect out of an hour long set. Aiken was a master of the mic and the craft, able to identify his assets and using them to his advantage. His appearance lent itself to some great physical comedy, he was also able to weave his audience interactions into the show, which was a great way to make the audience feel involved. Tallflower is a great way to spend an hour on a pleasant Saturday evening.
