MICF: Steele Saunders

In Steele Saunders – The Cat’s Meow, Saunders differentiates himself from a number of other comedians at MICF 2012 by largely sticking to the advertised theme of his show, in this case, the reasons why cats are better than people. Saunders does quite well in what is basically a traditional type of stand-up augmented by a monitor used to show a small amount of video of his cat in action and a montage of cat photos before the show.

The performance of humans and cats are compared across a number of areas including “exercise” and “intelligence”, and through stories from his own life, Saunders indicates that the haughtiness felines show their human companions is justified. The audience got some big laughs and Saunders worked off this well, particularly in the case of an audience member who was a little slow to laugh at some of the jokes. The presentation was polished and professional, showing that Saunders has put some thought into the construction of his show, which puts him ahead of a number of comedians at MICF 2012.

This was certainly one of the better traditional style stand-ups I’ve seen for a while, and should appeal to cat people and devotees of this type of performance. The tickets are cheap which gives an extra incentive to attend if you find yourself without a show to see one night. The problem I’m having is that the format itself is becoming more than a bit stale for me. Shows such as that of comedy-rock band Dead Cat Bounce or theatrical comedy such as  Sammy J & Randy in The Inheritance  have more to work with and tend to offer a night out with more surprises and consequentially more laughs. I’d be interested to see if Saunders takes his ability with comedic material to break out into a different type of show in the near future.