My coverage of Wonderland Festival 2018 continues with the third show I was lucky to review for Scenestr magazine this year. This was Thursday night during the second week of Wonderland and I was back in the intimate Graffiti Room. The Epicurean Shark is a one-man stand-up show from the funny Sam Bowden. The title reveals that this is an artist who is thoughtful and pondering some big ideas. I think there is room for growth but I look forward to seeing Mr Bowden develop his work and enjoyed his show.
You can read more of my thoughts here http://scenestr.com.au/comedy/the-epicurean-shark-brisbane-review-wonderland-festival-2018-20181203
Produced by Eyeball Media Enterprises Scenestr is an online national magazine with local offices around Australia. Celebrating 25 years in 2018 of publishing history they’ve excelled at moving into the digital realm but they remain at heart from the streets. They still publish magazines in print for Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and now Victoria! every month too.
-Lloyd Marken
Back to the Drawing Board Productions 
That’s a fair and nicely-balanced review, Lloyd. We seem to have something of a glut of stand-up comedians at the moment. Many of them just fall back on swearing and being crude. Few of them stand out for me as offering anything very original. I have three favourites that I will always watch and enjoy, and I will search out their performances, especially on TV. Eddy Izzard, Peter Kay, and Sarah Millican. Their humour is mostly observational, and any crude references or swearing are appropriate to the joke or monologue.
Best wishes, Pete.
I recognise those names and quite enjoy Millican. Just been watching the Death Star canteen sketch from Izzard on youtube and enjoyed it. I quite enjoy swearing but agree the best comedians use it in small amounts for maximum effort. In fact I was just listening to comedians discuss how much harder it is to be funny with a clean routine.
I’m glad you enjoyed the review Pete.
That’s an excellent review. It gives encouragement to the artist and encouragement to the potential audience. You do include the idea, though, that the artist is not perfect yet, which leaves it to the audience’s decision of whether he is worth the price of the tickets he is asking. Good stuff!
Thank you John. A lot of what I see are shows that are created during spare time with budgets where dollar has been squeezed out of them. I want to respect and honour their passion. Theodore Roosevelt’s “The Man In The Arena” speech is never far from my thoughts as a critic. But I also want to give our readers clear indicators of what I thought of the show too, like you said. In the end you’re hoping the artist always thinks you’ve been fair, respectful and reasoned and the audience gets a sense for your voice and whether this is something they might enjoy or not. I hope. 🙂