Review by Steve Bennett

Think you’ve seen everything in comedy? How about a man holding upside-down a cute blue-faced, pink-furred, hermaphrodite ‘monster’, who coos coquettishly in an unintelligible language as they vigorously 69?

Slutmonster And Friends, with its vivid kids’ TV show motif and sexually hypercharged characters, is not so much Teletubbies on acid, but on Viagra. Sure, it’s depraved, but it’s so ridiculously surreal that it’s silly, not offensive.

The plot – and yes, there is one – is that two young brothers are lost without food or water in a fairytale wood, full of fluorescent trees with breasts for fruit, where they stumble across the insatiable Slutmonster, eagerly played by Jessie Ngaio, his/her foam penis as prominent as a chalk-carved fertility symbol. All manner of sexual depravity ensues, sparking bloody sibling rivalry and some rather gruesome consequences.

Bovril, the older brother played by Wes Gardner, is a lascivious soul himself, sowing his seed liberally around the forest, while the marginally more level-headed, naive Larch (Lucas Heil) is the only relatively sane thing in the whole show.

It all works because of the absolute commitment to the over-the-top idea, however weird; the matter-of-factness with which they indulge every salacious urge; and the juxtaposition of filth and bright and breezey cartoon-like sensibilities.

Cutesy, ultra-friendly foam muppets narrate the action, which is is punctuated with jaunty showtunes and sweet animations, offering a wittily revisionist storybook version of the iniquitous events we have just witnessed.

The overall effect is rarely laugh-out-loud funny – though the monster’s ejaculation is hilarious, as are some of the more conventional one-liners projected on to the screen as the audience enter. Rather, it’s a weird but enjoyable dream –  the sort you might get after consuming too much cheese and porn before bedtime – and most certainly something very different from conventional stand-up fare.

Review date: 20 Apr 2013
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Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival