I’ve performed self-produced comedy since 2004, previously under the company name Shaolin Punk (though I don’t use that any more). Many of my shows have been solo, but I really like working collaboratively, so many of the shows below involve guests or other performers.
Ben McKenzie’s Late Night Games Night
A chat show with comedians while playing board games. A tester for a broader “chat show while playing games” format I am hoping to bring back, playing with not just comedians, and at a more reasonable hour.
Ben McKenzie is Uncool
After years of collaborative comedy work, I returned to solo performance for the 2014 comedy festival! This fifty minute show celebrated all the things I think are cool which most people do not. First (and so far only) season at the Provincial Hotel in Fitzroy, April 2014.
A Brief History of A Brief History of Time
The great unread classic explained! A special show for National Science Week 2008, and reprised in super-shortened form for 2012’s Peer Revue.
Museum Comedy
A series of comedy tours around scientific and/or historic institutions, Musem Comedy is still one of my favourite projects and one I hope to revisit some day. It was a fixture of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for five years from 2008 to 2012, where the tour itself sold out nearly every night; we also ran a couple of other shows under this banner, including a tour of the National Maritime Museum in Sydney.
A Record or an OBE
A short play exploring a weird “what if” scenario: could Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor have continued making The Goodies if Bill Oddie had quit at the height of their popularity? Written by yours truly (who also produced and played Graeme) with a story devised by me, Rob Lloyd (Tim) and Scott Gooding (director), and performed in Melbourne and Adelaide in 2007 and 2008. Highly Commended in its first season at the 2007 Melbourne Fringe Festival.
Science-ology
Science is rock ‘n’ roll, baby! And this was the show that proved it.
Evolutionary: the Man in the Lab Coat Evolved
Ben tells the story of life’s evolution from simple beginnings to staggering variety: a tale of drama, suspense and discovery, featuring a cast of untold billions and an awful lot of sex.
Listen to the Man in the Lab Coat
“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ (I found it!) but ‘That’s funny…'” – Isaac Asimov
The original Man in the Lab Coat show, a mixture of the history of science, and the history of the Man himself.