MICF: Late night live games

Late night variety chat shows with guests from around the festival are a winning formula.

Find a game that doesn’t alienate the audience, ask your friends performing around the festival to come play the game with you and prepare yourself for anything happening. Everyone wins out of these shows, the host just keeps everything on track, the comedians get a bit of publicity and the show is always going to be funny when you have four or more comedians in the room.

Late Night Board Game Slumber Party, hosted by Neil Sinclair of Charmingly Useless, is a joyous addition to the festival. Playing games like Cards Against Humanity and his own, completely rights safe, version of Jenga, the audience is kept engaged by the uproarious antics of whatever three comedians Neil has that night. He maintains a quick and amusing banter with his guests and he and the guests never get too lost in the game and forget the audience is there. Arrive early and you could be assigned one of the guests as your champion and there’s even a chance to win a prize if your comedian wins the night.

Late Night Letters and Numbers is a live version of the SBS tv game show. Masterfully hosted by Nick Caddaye, who is an old hat at this by this point with Late Night Letters and Numbers having brought its own special brand of comedy fuelled chaos to the festival in the past. Audiences are encouraged to take part in the action by showing up the guests in the game and attempting to come up with better words with the supplied letters or come closer to the solution for the maths problem. With six guests each night, the stage is a cavalcade of comedy talent and you’re bound to get a lot of laughs as your contestants struggle through the game.