Melbourne International Comedy Festival review by Steve Bennett

‘People have come to expect a certain amount of pretence from me,’ says Michael Workman... and boy, is he not wrong.

War is a mix of stand-up and magical realism-style storytelling, yet falls unrewardingly between the two. The frustration is that he is such an elegant wordsmith that both strands contain moments of great beauty and intelligent wit, but also get bogged down in an overtly conscious urge to make this into ART and not just proletarian comedy.

Workman – who was Barry-nominated last year for his thoughtful and literate output – describes this show as ‘a complex metaphor for the genesis and ultimate extinction of self-awareness,’ which might be enough to put anyone off, but gives a good idea of the ambitions of the piece.

Although he usually sidesteps cliché, he starts with an alternative answer to Edwin Starr’s question: ‘War, is it good for?’, mining an easy, oft-used idea. Indeed, the thrust of his fantasy element, that the threat of external aggression can be used to subjugate a population is true, but trite.

The phoney war involves a bomb that can take away dreams and a morphine-addled reporter out in the field. It is all vividly depicted with atmospheric adjectives and lyrical metaphors. Ironically, you would never call Workman’s turn of phrase workmanlike, but the story itself is not particularly compelling.

It does, however, neatly segue into some smart and original stand-up sections that deploy his artful descriptions and imaginative thinking on idiosyncratic observations. It’s delivered with a cool, relaxed authority, too, and a knowing nod to his own grandiloquence. Perhaps he needs to write a book to get the literary ambitions away and concentrate on the distinctive but more straightforward stand-up that throbs with ingenious possibility.

Review date: 2 Apr 2014
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett