Rove [live] Live - Metro Theatre - Sydney 14/12/00 - by epod

Sydney finally got the chance to see the people behind the Channel 10 tv show, "Rove [live]", performing in their imaginatively titled stage show, "Rove [live] Live", onstage for the for the first time in Sydney, over two nights, the 14th and 15th of December, 2000.

Rove Mc Manus, Corinne Grant, Dave Callan, and Peter Helliar showed how talented and funny they could actually be when not restricted by the constraints placed on them by commercial television. Rove seemed to prove my point when, within the first few minutes of the show he gleefully said, "Yes, that's right, I just used the word f*ck!".

Each of the kids took to the stage during the night doing a short segment of standup, there were also a series of sketches involving Rove and the kids together.

Rove was the first to take to the stage, amidst the high pitched, cringeworthy squeals of, "You're sexy Rove!" from the predominantly young female audience. I could remember most of Rove's standup material from his show "Rove Live As!" which I had seen at the Melbourne Comedy Festival last year, but since this was his first performance in Sydney, that was forgivable. And I must admit I laughed a second time round at his stories about "little dogs", "the strange things I do when I sleep, "big bananas", and "learner drivers".

Those who regularly watch "Rove [live]" will remember Roves discussion with Kate Fisher about the Avanti textbooks that most people get stuck with when they learn Italian at school. Tonight, in Avantis honour, they produced a sketch of the same name, which featured Rove's girlfriend Belinda Emmett translating Rove and the kids Italian spoken lines into English.

There was a brief moment of excitement from certain members of the audience (ie. me) when something was mentioned about a dance, but the excitement quickly abated when Rove said, "not THAT one!", referring to the Etc Etc dance craze that was introduced during the 1999 Channel 9 series of Rove. Instead, we got to see a new dance, performed by Dave Callan entitled, "The Watermelon Dance". Why was it called the watermelon dance you might say? Well, it involved a very naked Dave Callan and a strategically placed watermelon.

Corinne Grant appeared onstage stage immediately after Daves watermelon dance, proclaiming that she'd seen a little bit more of Daves watermelon then she had wanted to and that the audience was lucky because "they only had the side view, I had to look at it from the front...and not everything was covered up". Hehehe. Corinne was absolutely hilarious, and definately the highlight of the show, talking about all sorts of dramatics that take place that are related to alcohol and pubs. I now so much regret not being able to see her show "What A Nice Girl" at the Melbourne Comedy Festival last year, as I would have got to see a lot more of her material, rather than just a small segment. Oh well, there's always this year.

After scaring everyone with his watermelon dance, Dave Callan reappeared on stage and talked about all sorts of things, such as him sitting on the train and realising that, "hey, I'm the weird guy on the train!". He also told us about getting followed around shops in Sydney by store detectives and a few other equally amusing things I have unfortunately forgotten.

Peter Helliar also did a segment of standup which was mainly about his schooldays and unfortunately did not include too many bad accents. He did get a chance later to answer in his "Bad Accents R Us" style when there was a mock interview onstage with him and Corinne. Rove appeared later in an interview segment, complete with a very fetching dressing gown, sunglasses. hehehe.

The end of the show involved a number of highly impressive wrestling moves done by Dave Callan and Rove Mc Manus to the tune of "Time of Your Life", (For all those who saw series one of Rove : Say Goodbye by Indecent Obsession would have been more appropriate though me thinks though hehehe) and a few interesting poses from Pete and Corinne.

I loved the show and hopefully I will be able to see more of Rove Mc Manus, Peter Helliar, Dave Callan, and Corinne Grant doing what they do best - standup.