“Don’t lecture me, I’m not your audience.”
Backstage at a shitty pub, five comedians are gathered, waiting their turn to entertain a
lukewarm Tuesday night crowd with their various routines. There’s Nicky Barry’s
middle-aged comic who has been around the traps. Jordan Barr’s worn-down
comedian, who is thinking of quitting comedy. Tiana Hogben’s non-binary clown,
whose work includes props like a rubber chicken, a horn and a slide-whistle. Writer Tom
Ballard plays a version of himself – “the gay from the ABC” who does topical
humour that interrogates politics and society, while trying to learn and grow.
And then there’s the anti-woke, edgelord straight cis male comic who worships
Dave Chapelle, Louis CK and a recently deceased Aussie comedian called “Dirty
Dusty” played by Kevin Hofbauer.
It's a wide
array of characters with different backgrounds and viewpoints about stand-up
comedy and its place in entertainment and Ballard is using his oddly-titled
play to unpack the myriad thoughts he’s obviously having about what is and
isn’t funny anymore. Ballard, like his character in JKS, writes
thoughtful routines that dig into fraught subjects in an effort to be
enlightening and funny. Hofbauer’s character insists that comedy is getting a
laugh “by any means necessary”. It’s no more nuanced than that.
Turning his
keen eye to the tricky question of what can be considered funny these days
unfortunately feels more like an argument than a play. Or like watching a scuffle on Twitter without being able to jump into the fray. And for all the
effort Ballard has gone to in creating five distinct characters, the real
driving conflict of the play is between his character and Hofbauer’s. The
female and non-binary comedians become more and more unnecessary as the show
goes on. (They spend a lot of time trying to diffuse the angry men, which feels like a pretty retrograde position to put them in.)
There’s a
bit of an unevenness in the performances, too. Hofbauer is a great actor who
makes his unlikeable character compelling to watch – and his impression of Dave
Hughes (and his “Snakes Alive” joke) is impeccable. The other performers mostly
have experience in the world of stand-up, which gives the group an interesting
verisimilitude, but some of the drama doesn’t land because the quality of
acting is variable.
The show is occasionally hilarious and consistently uncomfortable, which seems right for the kind of argument Ballard
wants to have. But the problem with “going there” and using slurs and
regurgitating old routines to make a point means the audience have to listen to
a torrent of ableism and homophobia and racism just so the show can make its
point. Was it really necessary for the show to use the word “r****d” and its
variants multiple times during the show? Why has Ballard decided that this word
is okay to use while he – and the characters – know the n-word is verboten? If
the show is about where to draw the line, why is the r-slur thrown about with abandon?
JKS – a comedy (?) wants to have its laughs and lecture us, too. Starting with its coy title and continuing all the way through, Ballard doesn't want us to leave with a bad taste in our mouths, but by trying to give every side the same weight, he's made a show that wants us to forget that things are uneven to begin with.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
The show is playing at Trades Hall as part of Melbourne Fringe until October 12
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