By Chenoah Eljan
There’s a kind of irony in titling a show Absolute Dark Comedy and then delivering something so persistently obvious and underdeveloped it feels like a first timers’ open mic accidentally booked into a festival slot. There is nothing transgressive or risqué about tentative reliance on racial stereotypes, swear words and getting a bit shouty with the audience. Dark comedy should shine a light on intrusive thoughts we can all relate to and appeal to the selves we would indulge if not constrained by social convention. Sadly for this show, post pandemic, wearing trackies on stage isn’t that anymore.
The show takes place in possibly the worst venue at this year’s festival, an airless co-working space with low ceilings and plastic chairs on the 6th floor of the Causeway building. The structure is an MC, whose MCing skills did not extend to giving his name, and six comedians. The show’s real theme was palpable embarrassment by the performers of their inclusion in the show. That, and a rowdy audience whose self-awareness was far outranked by their inebriation. Turns out, if you bill a show as “dark”, you get an audience of red-faced middle aged white guys for whom basic human decency is wokeness gone mad.
Sander Õigus wears the first pair of trackies on stage. He’s from Estonia and has a few mildly funny cultural observations that warm the audience up a bit. Australians do like when you have a go at their weird animals. Dark it is not, but perhaps pushing the envelope or uncomfortable insights is not Õigus’s thing.
Frankie Marcos brings energy, but also jokes you feel you’ve heard before. There’s a clear attempt to provoke, to dance along the edge of taboo, yet the jokes themselves rarely move beyond surface-level stereotypes. He has a confidence on stage that sets him apart from the other comedians in the line up. And Marcos does get some laughs. Australians do like when you have a go at their weird slang.
The third comedian, and second pair of trackies, is a bald Indian guy whose name sounded like Danny Bhoy (but definitely wasn’t the Danny Bhoy). This comedian may not only have been on stage for the first time, but also possibly talking aloud for the first time. His discomfort was discomforting. His jokes wouldn’t make the cut for Kmart Christmas crackers.
Andrew Portelli was next up, and he opened with some of the only dark material in the show. Finally, some blood worship. Portelli’s material has glimpses of structure, and it’s clear it is considered. Intentional. But he at all times seems not only uncomfortable with his inclusion in the show, but also the push for dark material. He caveats that dark jokes are not really his thing. Portelli’s solo show at the festival this year is called Situations and the blurb promises laughing and learning. I’d give Portelli the benefit of the doubt and check his solo show out.
The only female comedian in the line up is Trea Young. Her style is well crafted, as much about her cute facial expressions and awkward pauses as it is about her series of one liners. Some of her jokes are dark and delivered with her sweet smile this hits well – but not as well as it would have in a bigger room. Young’s set would do much better in a place where she can hang those silences in big air over her audience. It’s not quite the same effect when she’s standing in the laps of the front row and there is no air to begin with.
The final comedian of the show is Sean Collier who matches Marco’s stage presence and has a story telling casual nature which disguises the craft. Some of Collier’s jokes are more well-crafted than others, but he does have the one joke that gets this reviewer to laugh out loud for the first and only time all night. It’s not dark, just funny. And that is a really important place to start.
