It is not often that I get the opportunity to experience a comedy show outside of the two major festivals in Melbourne. However, I caught wind of a recurring improvised comedy show happening on the weekend as part of Defrost Festival 2024 and I was down for it!
Hosted at Melbourne’s Improv Conspiracy and performed by Andy Balloch and Justin Porter is improvised sketch comedy show Gays of our Lives. The one-hour show is set out like a classic television soap opera. Many little stories that culminate into a big cliffhanger at the end. ‘How’ you may ask? Well, all Balloch and Porter needed was a little help from the audience: a location that has a lot of different types of people and the rest is completely improvised. As this show will never happen again, I feel obligated to share with you what exactly went down.
The location for the evening’s performance, provided by an audience member, was a train station. The duo proclaimed in unison “Like Chardonay through the wine glass, so are the Gays of our Lives” and the stage went pitch black. The show had not even started and I was already laughing! This was going to be one hell of a ride!
A voice over played saying “Previously on Gays of our Lives…” and the lights went up. Porter was sitting, seemingly reading a newspaper and Balloch was relaxed with a cigarette in his hands and simply said “About 2:30-” and the lights went dark again. Who’d of thought something so simple would be so damn hilarious, but I was unsure exactly on what was happening. It was when the lights went up again that I realised that the duo were setting up the episode that they were about to perform. Porter was standing seemingly holding a large wheel and shouted, “The corner is coming up real fast!” and the lights went dark again.
Sitting in the front row, I could just make out their figures in the dark, scrambling on stage for the next setup. The lights went up one final time and Porter was stage left, seemingly holding a rope and said in a female voice “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again…” and then lights went dark again.
Somehow, from these three fleeting and hilarious moments, an entire show was about to unfold.
Returning to the opening scene, we meet characters Donald and Tristan, passengers on a train discussing the weight of a vending machine. When Balloch first said “2:30-” I thought he was referring to the time. Nope. Anything is possible with improv and he was referring to weight, the weight of a vending machine to be exact. They somehow went from discussing how it doesn’t look that heavy to it containing fluid that makes it heavy. They even went on to discuss the ‘Air Cushion Technology’ that prevents it from sloshing about. You know, the same technology in those Nike Trainers? The audience was absolutely dying from laughter, me included, and just as it was starting to get good, much like a classic TV soap, the lights went dark, and we were onto the next scene.
Next, we meet the locomotive’s captain (Porter) as the train is coming up to a tight turn. Needing assistance to steer the train, young trainee, Trixie (Balloch) steps up to the plate, and due to the unfortunate timing of the previous assistant train engineer’s death, Trixie is promoted. Although, Trixie quickly discovers train life isn’t a glamorous one. After asking when her breaks are, she discovers there are no breaks and when you ‘need to go’ you do so with a bucket. Trixie isn’t ready to give up her life and heads for the exit. Again, just as the scene was getting good, the stage went black.
We were into the third scene that the duo had previously introduced, and we meet Jazzy (Porter) and Tiffany (Balloch). Jazzy is standing to one side, just pulling on a rope that never seems to have an end. Tiffany is curious as to why Jazzy is always working on her breaks, to Jazzy’s response, “If I don’t pull it, who will?”. Well, as it turns out, the ropes are linked to another room full of cows and if you stop pulling the ropes, the cows will die!
It was so left of field; the audience were both stunned and laughing hysterically. It was like some sort of metaphysical shit straight out of an episode of LOST. Tiffany was concerned that if the cows die, what would they eat!? Although Jazzy had enough and wants Tiffany to stop, guilt tripping Jazzy, Tiffany screamed “Do you want those bovines to die?”. It was hilarious. The pair are seemingly trapped and the lights naturally go dark again.
The next two scenes are of characters that we had not been introduced to yet. First, being a scene between a ticket inspector and a female passenger trying to avoid having her ticket checked. The inspector (Balloch) was walking across the front of the stage, seemingly holding a device to scan tickets and requesting “Tickets please, tap here” over and over. I couldn’t resist, sitting in the front row, I reached for my phone and tapped his hand as he stood in front of me, to his response “It’s interactive now!”.
Finally reaching the young woman, Cassandra (Porter) who is sitting alone on the carriage, the inspector requested for her ticket, only for the lady to unexpectedly respond with “No thank you” and walk away. The next 5 minutes was just a cat and mouse game of the pair trying to scan a ticket and avoid being scanned. In classic soap opera style, the pair end up in a romantic scandal centred around their knowledge of the ‘Custom Bolivian Double Imported Handrails’ in the carriage.
The final scene was a pair of workers, Jamie (Porter) and Phillip (Balloch), inspecting a broken rail bridge. Jamie explains that he is concerned about the cows and how he is going to get them out with the bridge broken. Jamie loves his cows so much, he apparently left his whole family behind in another country, to ensure their (the cows) safety. Jamie continues to ask Phillip if he had ever seen a cow commit murder and suddenly the scene ends.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a great day time television show without some ads, and we were treated to a chaotic ‘word from our sponsors’. Mort and Morty’s Train Emporium, completely on theme, the pair are peddling a new design of train that can fly. “It’s a metal tube, that you can get onto on the ground, that flies. It may sound like a plane, but they are different”. Honestly, I have no idea how they managed to string this bit along for as long as they did. I lost my marbles (not literally) during the first 30 seconds of this sketch and Justin Porter and Andy Balloch masterfully just kept spinning it.
The final stretch of this episode of Gays of Our Lives is a return to each of the scenes laid out before the ‘ad break’. The two discuss the heavy liquid vending machine, discover the train is going the wrong way, and devise a plan to turn the train around. How? By knocking over the vending machine to create a counterweight to turn the wheel in the engine room around and get them back on track.
Porter’s character heads to the front of the train and Balloch’s Trixie is ready and waiting just outside the engine room. With nobody portraying the captain, the pair must switch in and out of the three characters to complete the scene. Jaw-droppingly executed so flawlessly, Porter and Balloch are masters of their craft.
I was never lost as to which character was which or who was who, and it was damn funny too! How they managed to do it with a straight face the whole time, I will never know. Balloch, now in character as Porter’s original character, headed back to the carriage. However, all is not as it seems, they managed to turn the train around, but not in any physical direction. They turned the train around in time!
Sure enough, the rift in space time leads us back to the metaphysical cows and the magic rope. Jazzy and Tiffany are fighting over what to do. Do they stop with the rope or do they keep pulling it? Well, Jazzy had a different idea and started going backwards, reversing the polarity! Jazzy proclaims, ”That’s right! I’m reversing the cow polarity, I’m turning them around, in time”.
By this point, I had absolutely lost it. I had no idea how we got to this point, and I could tell that Andy Balloch and Justin Porter were just as shocked as we were. But somehow, they managed to hold it together.
The epic Gays of Our Lives Saturday August 3rd, 2024 episode ended with a big twist that nobody saw coming. The two workers that were inspecting the bridge for the cows, well, they are not workers. Remember the comments about the cows going on a murderous rampage? Well, as it turned out, Porter’s character is a cow in a human skin suit, he quite literally mimicked the removal of his skin. As if that wasn’t twisted enough, Balloch also removed his skin, revealing that he is in fact a horse (an epic rivalry) and the pair are about to fight before the stage goes dark one final time.
Whilst I have seen Andy Balloch perform before with his solo shows, it was my first introduction to Justin Porter’s work. I was completely blown away by how hilarious these two are together. Not just with the wacky and fucked up shit that they managed to come up with, but by how well they memorise and call back on the little things in each story. They are masters of improvised comedy.
Even when one of them would seemingly trip up, the other would lean into it, cleverly making the mention into a key part of the narrative. It was even funnier when one would say something and the other would respond basically saying “Go on, I ain’t going near that, tell me more”, in a blatant attempt to make the other break.
After experiencing Gays of our Lives for the very first time, it is evident that Andy Balloch and Justin Porter are the best in the business. Gays of our Lives is easily one of the best improvised comedies I have ever seen. And whilst this chaotic train ride with bovines and equines at secret war, complete with a rift in the space-time continuum and all sponsored by Mort & Morty’s flying trains will never be seen again, I will definitely return in a heartbeat to see what chaos Balloch and Porter create in the next dramatic episode of Gays of our Lives.
For more information and future ‘episodes’ and related shows, visit:
https://www.improvconspiracy.com/shows/defrost-2024-gays-of-our-lives
https://www.instagram.com/theandyballoch
https://www.instagram.com/thejustinporter