Review by Steve Bennett

Before there was Russell Brand, there was Greg Fleet. Heroin addiction? Tick. Dreadfully inappropriate prank call on radio? Tick. Cleaned up his act and gone on to be a charismatic Hollywood millionaire.

Ah.

Fleety’s tale doesn’t quite have such a convenient ending. This is a show of heart-wrenching pathos, as he talks about how a generation of Australian comics he inspired have gone on to great things, while his addiction cost him a fortune and almost every friend he ever had. If there’s a bitterness about this state of affairs, he doesn’t show it, just regret. A lot of regret. He once earned six-figure sums, now he’s hawking his DVD after the show as the audience file past, ignoring him.

It’s not, of course, the first time Fleet has opened his heart on his drug problems. In 1996 he caused a huge stir at this very festival with his confessional Ten Years in a Long-Sleeved Shirt, revealing the extent of his dependency and giving the strong impression that he had overcome that monster.

But as he toured the world with his story, and filmed it for TV, the truth was that he was still off his nuts. The comedian priding himself on honesty was still living the lie.

This is a follow-up, of sorts, to that acclaimed show. And this time, he assures us, it’s different; he really has quit. It’s a mark of his charm as a performer that we don’t for one minute think he’s pulling the wool over our eyes again.

Indeed, the rawness means this feels like a show still being put together, just as Fleet puts his own life back together. It’s not there yet - the show, that is. While the anecdotes paint a vivid picture of his miserable existence on drugs, they don’t have the single vision to be a satisfying journey.

The one thing he has got, at great personal expense, from that awful past are some fascinating anecdotes. And he has the storytelling chops to do them justice: whether it be a babblingly incomprehensible interview he conducted with Avril Lavigne while off his head, or reliving the misery he was forced to inflict on a victim of a prank call, all the more pertinent given what happened with the Duchess of Cambridge’s hospital.

To add to the sense of a work in progress, a couple of the stories here are reprised from last year’s show: about scoring heroin in an overwhelmingly bleak Glasgow tenement that almost turned out very nasty and of being intimidated by a towering steroid abuser while in rehab.

There’s a genuine feeling that he has put these days behind him now, and is knuckling down to rebuilding a life, a career... and what’s likely to be an amazing comedy show. The Boy That Cried Sober is not that show, but it is another step towards it.

Review date: 7 Apr 2013
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival