Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

Respected comedy veteran Bob Franklin sets a suitably spooky mood for his lecture on the history of horror, helped immeasurably by the musical accompaniment of James Hazelden and his electric upright bass.

The premise is that we are a bunch of genre fans assembling in the lecture room of a crumbling county house on the remote English moors to hear from the star of numerous Hammer films.

But while Franklin strikes the perfect distinguished, actorly tones, the show itself is something of an anticlimax. For it turns out an overview of horror through the ages is precisely what we are going to get.

Sure, the ambience is creepy thanks to his portentous performance and a sinister-sounding subplot involving his wife and his feelings for his flirtatious assistant, which Franklin plays up for tension. Suspense that is often dissipated with a sudden switch in tone to a jokey aside.

But the thriller aspect has diminishing returns, and ultimately disappoints, while the wry punchlines – with a few noteworthy exceptions –  tend towards the pedestrian, with quips about Ikea furniture being hard to assemble or cold-calls from energy suppliers being irritating. Franklin nice way of building these into running gags, but they are not especially fresh.

Horror and comedy have long been bedfellows, since they both revolve around the creation and sudden release of anticipation, but Sir Robert's History of Horror falls awkwardly between the two stools: neither funny nor spine-tingling enough.

But the brisk show is very atmospheric, and you might genuinely learn a bit about some classics of the genre along the way.

Review date: 4 Apr 2019
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival