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Sketchy at Best

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One of the freshest and funniest duos to hit the Melbourne Comedy Festival was The Lioness and now they’re back — slicker, bolder, and punchier than ever before — to bring you their spectacular new show, Sketchy at Best. The much-anticipated show takes the small and big ideas of life and weaves them together into 50 minutes of non-stop laughs. Milk Bar Mag had the pleasure to chat to Charlie Ranger about what fans can expect on their show, the mystical origins of The Lioness, and their major comedic influences.

Congratulations on your sell-out season at the Comedy Festival. Could you give a preview of what fans could expect of your upcoming show, Sketchy at Best?


Well, its definitely going to be us trying to be funny. Desperately trying, but hiding the desperation as best we can so that we look like a coupla cool cats on stage just rollin’ with the LOLs. What that basically means is that it’s a whole bunch of new content mixed with a couple of ‘best of’ sketches from the last two years.

How did The Lioness get its name? Were the lion onesies always part of the plan? 

One of our mates (an adult) spent 45 minutes drawing with a crayon in a corner and came up with one of the most ridiculous pictures titled ‘The Lioness’ (see photo). It was too perfect a picture to ignore. Michelangelo would be proud. IMG_0083The Lion onesies came later and have proven to be a less-than inspired choice. Man, we sweat a lot in those things … like, so much … just so much sweat. Still, we love them.

What influences the material you put together? Did you grow up loving sketch comedy?

Initially it was a shared love of the English version of The Office that brought Spank and I together. Watching that on Saturday nights in first year uni. Yeah, we were pretty gangsta. For me personally, growing up, I was a massive fan of Aussie comedies like Full Frontal and Frontline. Those kinda shows were pretty definitive in me wanting to pursue comedy.

The Lioness has been linked to comedy acts such as The Mighty BooshLittle Britain and Chris Lilley, is there a certain character that resonates with you?

Our comedy creates absurd situations played for truth. For example, the guy who goes to a GP wanting to find out if his daughter’s a horse. Or the baby chick that doesn’t want to eat his mum’s sick for dinner. This is a big part of the Boosh influence, and really, how can anyone go past Howard Moon?

What has been the greatest accomplishment for The Lioness so far? And where do you see your work taking you?

We had the absolute pleasure of performing to over 3,000 people at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition for Festival 21. That was pretty special and an amazing opportunity to create some content specifically for the festival. If I get to keep creating work with one of my best mates and putting on shows that make me and some others laugh, well that’ll be pretty great.

What do you think the audience will get out of the show?

In this show we just wanna give people a sharp, hilarious fifty minutes of comedy. We’re here to develop our own brand of comedy that has a bit of something for everyone. It’s got a whole range of ideas packed in, so whatever your taste, give us a try, and watch us sweat bullets in the hottest outfits ever created.

Don’t miss your chance to catch these crazy cats perform — we’ll see you at The Butterfly Club this week!

Sketchy at Best
The Butterfly Club, Carson Place, off Little Collins Street, Melbourne
Tuesday, 8 to Sunday, 13 August 2017
thebutterflyclub.com/show/sketchy-at-best


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