Review by Julia Chamberlain

This is the kind of gem that we’re all seeking at a festival. Jon Bennett is not a stand-up comic, and this is not a stand up show. What he gives us is stunning storytelling, amusingly illustrated with family snaps, short videos and screen grabs.

He’s got an excellent instrument, a warmly compelling voice, but it’s not actorish, he sounds natural and strong and you just want to watch him. He’s got an intriguing face – is he handsome, is he odd looking, or both by turns?  But his main asset is stillness, the quality of centredness so that even when there’s a torrent of words pouring forth, or he’s dancing around in a pink rabbit jacket, it’s not frenetic; the still eye of the storm. 

As a top cricketer seems to have extra time to make a shot, he has a quality of concentration and focus that would hold your attention even if the ceiling were falling in.  He’s a natural orator; dad’s a teacher/minister, maybe there’s something in the genes?

My Dad’s Deaths is a narration of growing up in rural South Australia where the community is so small that dad is literally everything to the young Jon: father, teacher, bus driver, sports coach, minister and all. This more narrowly concerns Ray Bennett’s various apparent deaths – falling  from ladders, choking on bubbles, pig-piss-induced illness and more.  Each event is never less than a crisis, forcing  Bennett Jr to examine the family relationships that staring  down the barrel of bereavement  throws into focus.

And every time his father ‘dies’, the reminder is that Jon has disappointed his dad (by swearing, by doing stand-up, by ditching a sensible job, a sensible house, being, gasp, vegetarian) and there is no sharper pain than the regret that you have not been a better child to your parent. 

And the breathtaking thing is, he makes this delicate area very entertaining. It’s a universal subject as old as time,  if it hasn’t happened to you yet, it will.  It’s why some of the repeated phrases put me in mind of The Odyssey or other epic poetry, where the repetition provides a backbone to the whole piece.   I realise I am going straight to Pseud’s Corner with these comparisons, but this show is an example of how much comedy can achieve in terms of depth and range, that it can be belly laugh funny and emotionally powerful, without cloying sentimentality.  

 The death incidents are punctuated with the found poetry of semi-literate Facebook-speak, which he doesn’t mock – that would be too easy. But he gives it new and vivid life by reading it as it appears, exaggerated spellings, acronyms and all.  He is hypnotically engaging; you do really want to know what happens next all the way through and he’s got the skills to make the minutiae of family life hilarious.

Review date: 23 Aug 2013
Reviewed by: Julia Chamberlain