Melbourne International Comedy Festival

The Age

Armed with a wayward emery board and more theatrical daring than you could poke a pedicure at, Uber Alice will enchant you with its polish. One of nature's genuine absurdists, Jonathon Katz takes his audience on a trans-continental, pan-theatrical journey as experienced by a manicurist with mannish hands.
The point of the show might be elusive and performance conventions might well be stabbed to a bloody death with the help of a razor-sharp cuticle cutter, but it doesn't matter: Katz is never inert and always funny.

- Helen Razer

The Age

The real attraction of this unlikely concatenation of events and characters is that the deliverer, Jonno Katz, is round the twist after the twist that mad people are around. The story he tells in mime, with a very cheap and tawdry bunch of props and a minimalist set, concerns a new creation story, ordered by God when she finds the current state of things in the world not to her taste. See, there's this farmer's daughter from the South Island of New Zealand, named Emily, or possibly Alice ... but no, I won't spoil it. Don't miss the bickies that Phil (Katz as the narrator) hands out at half-time.

- Bill Perrett

Inpress

God has come down to tell us we're making a mess of it and that She is ending the world. On the bright side though, She's calling for the people of the world to come up with a couple of cracking creation stories; the best one to be used in the next world. So Uber Alice begins and Phil, our narrator, does his best to explain Alice's childhood as a sheep farmers daughter from the South Island of New Zealand, and her rise to fame as a "strong but gentle" manicurist destined to start a new world. Phil guides us through the epic story, trying to answer any questions on sticky plot points, setting new scenes and handing out biscuits during "the break".

It's clear from the beginning of Uber Alice that the audience is going to have to work at understanding the show especially, as Phil says, "in the first half". Jonno Katz is a one man powerhouse, playing the parts of all the characters, some of the set and his own stage crew. He leaps and bounds across the tiny stage, using every conceivable theatrical device to clarify what is a fanciful yet compelling tale. This show harks back to traditional epic-Greek-tragedy-style-storytelling… only much funnier. Katz's quick wit and good humour makes for an extremely amusing performance. Ending with the one of the funniest mimed fellatio scenes I've seen, Uber Alice is definitely worth working through.

Liz Vun

Swinburne Uni Paper

Alice is a delicate country manicurist who is compelled by her spirit guide to leave her New Zealand home and seek a higher destiny. It’s a journey that brings her to Hollywood, true love, suffering, and in the end a fate much grander than she could ever have imagined…

This destructive creation myth mystifies and amuses with roughly the same frequency. The star, Jonno Katz, uses every square inch of the little space he has to throw his rubbery body around in almost alarming contortions. There’s no denying his consummate physical skills, but the pacing of Uber Alice is a little off. There are too many gaps, too many pauses that interrupt the story for no good reason. Perhaps Katz’ many asides to the audience are supposed to distract from how little the plot makes sense; even its internal logic is somewhat lacking.

Jonno Katz navigates the treacherous waters of the one-man show with some difficulty; his character transformations are awkward and his ratio of story to banter sits uneasily. But Uber Alice has tremendous energy and truckloads of imagination, not to mention an ending that will leave you wide-eyed, awed, and more than a little shell-shocked. Plus, he gives out biscuits.

- Zilla Bailey