A year after their successful Melbourne International Comedy Festival debut, Sweeney Preston and Ethan Cavanagh are back for a show that proves that presentation really is everything.
The lads’ 2021 MICF extended season featured sold-out shows and positive reviews for both their comedy and sense of style. This year, Cavanagh explains that “there’s a lot more of me and Sweeney doing stuff together” and that “this year we’ve worked on putting a show together that is one piece of work”, rather than their previous 50/50, split-bill style show.
This year’s show not only highlights the boys’ polished sense of fashion – I’m talking formal suits and bowties – but it also shows their proficiency (or lack thereof, you decide) in Microsoft PowerPoint.
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Truth be told, the thought of sitting through a comedy show based around a PowerPoint presentation, with its success at the mercy of a fickle laptop, made me nervous. This is particularly true after studying through a pandemic and dealing with the immeasurable technical difficulties that go hand in hand. However, according to Cavanagh, I am part of the target demographic.
“This show directly is for people who have had the pleasure or pain of sitting through back-to-back years of shitty PowerPoints and boring presentations, at work, in meetings, doing pitches, at uni, with group presentations, all that kind of stuff, and it is just leaning into the absurdity of that whole dynamic, and the clunkiness that often comes with it”, says Cavanagh.
It is true that at times the gags dipped into absurdity, but it sounded by the surrounding laughter at Loop Project Space & Bar that the audience were happy to go on the journey with them.
Reminiscent of a couple of school kids who have just been let loose with a blank PowerPoint file, the show opens the door into the world of exaggerated audio-visual presentation, with 200 slides, air horns, and lots of special effects.
Preston explains that “this show is for anyone looking for a comedy festival performance that they can just chill out and sit back and watch, without any fear of being offended or having any sort of political mentions”. However, the comedian goes on to say “it’s quite a risk-taking show as well. The lengths Ethan and I go to ensure that your chill experience has peaks and troughs is at times, I will admit, mind-boggling”.
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The show deep-dives on a couple of key jokes, rather than quickly flying through a breadth of topics, and is highly self-referential. I never thought I would leave a comedy show with a new appreciation for regional Victorian public transport infrastructure, or questions about the unsustainability of sustainable products, and yet here we are.
Preston shares with Forte that “we felt like we needed a new challenge”, and “we are still very early on in our careers, so we thought why not experiment a little?”. Cavanagh reveals that they “have taken a lot of risks with it, we have done a lot of dumb stuff, and some really big stuff”.
Presentation is Everything is a different style of comedy for these two, when compared to their 2021 show, and is right up the alley for those who like more of the overstated, silly humour. Featuring cameos from joyful personalities, and necessitating a road trip out to the Goldfields region for research, as well as being likely the only festival show with a reference list, these two have undeniably gone to great lengths to pull this show together.
Preston and Cavanagh clearly have a great time up on stage and aren’t afraid to take the mickey out of themselves for the sake of a laugh.
A show that doesn’t take itself too seriously, Presentation is Everything is showing until April 21st, with tickets on sale here.
