By Bec Johnston
Jack Docherty isn’t exactly a household name in Australia. He’s BAFTA-nominated, and had a ’90s chat show out of the UK on Channel 5, which didn’t quite make waves on our distant southern shores. Someone forgot to tell Docherty that, though, as he makes his showbiz entrance upstairs at The Westin in a whirl of costume magic and theatrical grandeur. It doesn’t take long for him to endear himself, with all the presence and cheeky charisma you would expect from such a practiced storyteller and showman. This is ‘David Bowie & Me: Parallel Lives’ – a sharp and funny exploration of the awkwardness of adolescence, the foibles of young love, and the omnipresence of the Starman in the life of a fiercely loyal fan. It’s the first time Docherty has brought the show to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and he’s made sure to do his homework. He swaps out references to his native Edinburgh for affectionate digs at places like Shepparton. It’s the little things that count, and he wins over the audience of mainly twenty and thirty-somethings before you can say “Rebel Rebel”.
Bowie songs and videos play in a scattershot fashion through the hour. This creates a familiar soundtrack for those of us who came along to this velvety room of a weird and posh hotel in the hopes of a chance to soak in the warm, frothy waters of Mick Ronson’s guitar licks and the deeply crooned delights of the Duke. Docherty dangles the carrot (or the capsicum) of something more than just surface-level fandom, though. Bowie was indeed a guest on The Jack Docherty show in 1997, an appearance that gave us the gift of an excellent, stripped back rendition of ‘Dead Man Walking’, from his drum-and-bass album ‘Earthling’ that released the same year. For the Bowie wonks in the audience, we are on the edge of our seats, waiting for a crumb of insight into the inner machinations of the man behind the legend. Docherty does deliver – though, in what feels like a calculated move, he waits until deep in the second half of the show to share his anecdotes of his time spent with the star. Bowie and Docherty only spent a few hours together, but the insights we hear from Jack are well worth the price of admission.
What becomes evident is that this is a show less about David Bowie, and more about the things you loved when you were young, and how it can feel to revisit them years later with a renewed perspective. Docherty speaks about the wild and ‘un-PC’ world he grew up in during the 1970s, and makes some attempts to pass commentary on things like cancel culture and other social hot-button topics that permeate the current age. These moments fell quite flat, and seemed out of place in an otherwise upbeat and irreverent script. A performer that spends several minutes impersonating his own penis probably doesn’t need to detail his thoughts on the current online consent discourse in the same show. It at once cheapens the serious subject matter and throttles the comedic momentum. Fortunately, this sequence does not last long, and we are back to the jokes and Aladdin Sane sound bites.
Docherty feels passionately about the subject matter, about the Ziggy of it all, and this passion exudes from him – his booming Scottish timbre and keen and witty delivery make the 50-minute show a joyous thing to experience. Bowie fan or not, you are sure to leave the theatre a fan of Jack’s. He’s not afraid to bare all, to borrow from the scrapbook of his own life and share his dark and private moments, the embarrassing anecdotes of his younger years. And through it all, he weaves David Bowie back into the piece, like a guardian angel, or perhaps a laughing gnome on his shoulder. In truth, the parallels felt slightly more perpendicular at points, and the deeper connection between the two men that the show promises in its thesis never fully reveals itself. This can easily be forgiven, though, because what Docherty does deliver is a heartfelt love letter – not to Bowie – but to his own younger self, and does it in a way that is beautifully relatable. It’s a hilarious and touching journey he takes us on, and a very fine way to make his Australian debut.
