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Theatre review: The Noose needs a little tighening

One of the funniest sketches in The Noose And Kakis ... 11 Months Of Fresh Air, where the Singapore minister (Chua En Lai, second from right) tries to get his Indonesian counterpart (Suhaimi Yusof, second from left) to do something about the haze. Photo: Mediacorp Vizpro.

One of the funniest sketches in The Noose And Kakis ... 11 Months Of Fresh Air, where the Singapore minister (Chua En Lai, second from right) tries to get his Indonesian counterpart (Suhaimi Yusof, second from left) to do something about the haze. Photo: Mediacorp Vizpro.

SINGAPORE – The last time we saw The Noose show live on stage, we were crammed into a club as the members (Judee Tan, Alaric Tay, Suhaimi Yusof and Chua Enlai) and radio deejays The Muttons ran through a series of skits and made everyone laugh.

Fast forward four years and the quartet have once again brought their successful TV show to life on stage in The Noose And Kakis … 11 Months Of Fresh Air. This time, it's at the spacious Theatre at the new Mediacorp building on Stars Avenue. 

The titular kakis (Malay for “friends”) are stand-up comedians from Singapore and Malaysia: Fakkah Fuzz, Rishi Budhrani, Kumar, Rizal Van Geyzel, Kavin Jay and Harith Iskandar. Unlike their previous show, this was a combination of live skits, stand-up comedy and pre-recorded videos which served to link between the skits and the stand-up segments.

On paper, this looks promising. The Noose, after all, is one of Channel 5’s funniest shows since Under One Roof or Phua Chu Kang, and more often than not, their satirical skits hit the mark. Combine that with some of the funniest stand-up comedians from both sides of the Causeway, and you’ve got a hit, right?

Well. Sort of. Blame it on opening night jitters, but the show on stage we saw didn’t quite have that same snap as the TV series. There were funny moments. Take the opening monologue (although, can it be an opening monologue if four people are doing it?), where the cast member took at dig at everything and everybody. From commenting how this live show was “a final attempt to get another season on TV” (the show was reportedly stuck in limbo after the last season); to lamenting that although they had three comedians from Malaysia, they couldn’t get the country’s “best comedian, Najib” (referencing Malaysia’s prime minister Najib Razak), nothing was sacred.

Some of the sketches worked well. En Lai’s take as his most popular character, Pornsak Sukhumvit, was a howler, as he pondered the situation of having Uber and Grab in Singapore versus regular taxis. He even got the audience to chime in too. Another sketch that hit the mark was the haze skit, where the minister from Singapore meets his Indonesian counterpart to discuss the haze situation. As the latter explains that it’s the wind’s fault that Singapore gets the haze, the Singapore minister pipes up, pointing to a standing fan: “So if I fart, and you smell the fart, is it my fault or that fan’s fault?”

Yes, toilet humour works every time.

What didn’t work though was the pacing. At three hours (including an intermission), the show was too long for comedy. The interspersing of the stand-up comedy in-between the skits was also a little too jarring. The comedians were definitely funny, but their segments that punctuated the sketches were a little too disruptive and sat incongruously to the sketch format of The Noose. Also, the jump cuts from video projection to live action onstage made the flow lag a little.

And some of the sketches, such as the MRT sketch, and the taxi scene of Pornsak's segment, were simply too long, such that it felt like the last three stand-up comedians - Kumar, Rishi and Rizal - seemed to be rushed through their sets.

Understandably, live sketch shows are a tricky pony. While the length of each sketch can vary - although they ought not to break the 7 minute mark - sketch shows should be like pop concerts. You come out with a bang, you hit the audience hard and fast with your witty repartee and get to the punchline quick enough. And if there isn’t a punchline, then that’s where the video projections come in to move the action to the next sketch. And you end off with your biggest hits - and leave the audience wanting more. 

As it stands, The Noose and their kakis could do with a little tightening to the set - possibly even dropping some scenes or sketches altogether. It’s not all bad, but it could be much better.

Of course, at the end of the day, whether a show works or not is wholly dependent on the audience, who laughed at all the right parts and appeared to enjoy themselves from start to finish. Going by the responses from the majority of the people whom we spoke to, they were more than happy with the show. That’s good for The Noose.

Hopefully, it’s good enough such that The Noose really can get another season on TV. 

The Noose And Kaki is on until April 2, 8pm at the Theatre @ Mediacorp. Tickets from SISTIC. 

 

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