Review by Steve Bennett

Dr Professor Neal Portenza thrives on chaos, but these shambolic circumstances proved a challenge even for him.

It was late starting, as he’d forgotten a vital prop and had to dash home to get it; there was terrible noise bleed from the neighbouring venue; his PowerPoint was unreadable as there was no suitable surface – not even a nailed-up bedsheet – on which to project it; and there was rowdy hardcore of the audience whose chattiness, heckles and very existence were a real distraction. Really, if your response to something funny is to howl like a Wookie, EVERY FUCKING TIME, you’ve no right to be out in public, you dim-witted, self-centred moron.

It leaves our rouge-cheeked clown in something of a pickle. He is the lord of misrule, so needs to fire up our playful inner imps... but the last thing some elements of this boisterous crowd need is encouraging.

Just a thread kept the gig from collapsing into complete anarchy, and it’s to his credit that this effective absurdist just about kept it together, without blazing all guns at the irritants. I suspect that without such challenges, there’s probably a better show fighting to get out, but that’s only a projection.

The element of interaction that was planned mainly took the form of voting pads that determine the course action. The audience is offered genuine options, but whatever is chosen is guaranteed to result in some weird nonsense, such as the donning of a foam fish-head. And as well as his main persona, the good Dr Professor offers us other characters such as a bizarre mixed martial-arts guy who has the accent of Borat, or Neal’s deliciously evil twin Gary, who seemed set on doing a Blind Date skit before being scuppered by circumstance.

There’s not much attempt at sophistication. Josh Ladgrove – the Melbourne comedian beneath Portenza’s medial get-up – instead deploys silly, slapstick stunts to dissolve away inhibitions and regress his audience to childish play. Indeed, Gary is the strict parent brought out to bring us in line, so when he gets humiliated, the joy is greater.

Quite how the show is meant to pan out remains a mystery to me, but Portenza shows himself to be a lively conductor of chaos, able to take whatever nonsense the gig throws at him.

Review date: 10 Aug 2013
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett