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Comedians get their ideas for shows from all over the place. I sometimes wonder if some get them from old skips. Bec Hill got hers last October when she drunkenly described herself to a celebrity she once had a crush on in the Soho Theatre bar as “award-winning”. Being true to her word the Aussie comedian felt she now had to go out and win an award to justify her boast.
I can’t say if Bec Hill…in Ellipsis will win any awards this year, but she certainly gives it her all, bouncing around onstage from before people have even sat down to the very finish. Ellipsis, by the way, is what three full stops put together in sentences are called. On the club circuit Hill is known for her quirky flip chart animations and wordplay (she is involved in the Pun Run club) but these are just two elements in a busy, hyperactive show full of surprises. It would spoil the fun to go into too much detail about them. Let’s just say that this is a bouncy, bubbly show that is absolutely impossible to dislike.
Proceedings kick off with some neat Boy with Tape on His Face silent clowning, before Hill adds a random element to the gig with a cardboard wheel which she spins to discuss things that make her angry. For such a happy-go-lucky person a lot gets her goat. She might need to laminate her wheel though – I saw one of the early shows and it was already creased and sticking on the same choices.
Hill's trademark lo-fi animations are the show's highlights. They are witty and inventive and there is even a spot of low-impact audience participation when she gets a punter to make trees grow, rain clouds arrive and more. I’ve seen this sort of thing done before but never quite as well or as creatively.
She peppers her patter with offbeat quips that are not always the sharpest in the box but delivered with bags of charm. Hill clearly has the self-awareness to known that not all of her gags are zingers. In one section she pauses to deliver a sequence of one-liners that might be rejected by a Christmas cracker company for being too cheesy. Award-winning? Who can say? But she certainly deserves to win more fans...
