By Jennifer Beasley.
An intellectual, witty and piecing comedy act by a performer who isn’t afraid to get real.
I love an intellectual comedy. It makes me feel I haven’t wasted all those years at university, and you can never have too many degrees, can you?
Enter whip smart Lucille MacKellar. Feminist first and PhD candidate in Mathematics, she had me at the word diaspora. Goodness, a fountain of word porn ensured, and boy, was I hooked!
Not so much as boy problems as problem boys, MacKellar has a keen eye, and discussions on why men have more pockets in their clothes than women transitioned into longings for the ‘dream boy’ who turns out really to be more of a ghost image, all the while MacKellar excels in being hot.
And she did look great on stage. Oozing confidence this girl, with her hot pink shirt, sexy mini skirt and three-quarter black boots, all extremely relevant to this reviewer who wonders if that look would look as good if I tried it. Perhaps. But MacKellar certainly commanded the small downstairs stage at The Grace Darling Hotel.
Leaning into her academic background the audience were entertained by a slideshow on the various gayness of icons, after a discourse on the three types of men she’d been dating. This segueing occurring because MacKellar realised that she wasn’t attracted to men at all.
Using a pointer to showcase graphs showing that approximately 85% of cities are occupied by gay men, with information sourced (reliability) from the Office of Penny Wong, and a café somewhere on the grounds of Melbourne University, MacKellar brings her Sydney flare to assess the Melbourne scene and men.
Questions such as why does it take a train, a bus, a tram and a boat to get from Carlton to Richmond have the audience laughing and nodding. Lesbian stereotypes go flying out the door under the sharp investigative skills of this keen graph hound, and the audience were asked to rate pictures of men if they were a ‘friend’ gay or ‘enemy’.
Funny, clever, and over too soon, MacKellar has great eye contact, without being intense. I felt that this emerging comedian has a lot more in her still and I’ll be watching her progress in her career.
Support this new talent and go see her ‘pretend’ to slip up. It’s all part of the act. Well done MacKellar. Dare to be different and hit it hard!
Lucille MacKellar Has Boy Problems now playing at The Grace Darling Hotel at 6:15 pm until 20th of April.
