Melbourne International Comedy Festival review by Steve Bennett

Festival veteran Justin Hamilton has crafted a slick, robust hour of storytelling stand-up, written and delivered with taut military discipline. The flipside however, is that such a heavily scripted monologue can be short on any sense of excitement or discovery, already difficult emotions to generate if you’re a comic doing your umpteenth festival show.

It’s far from obvious from the title, Johnny Loves Mary 1994, but this tale is largely based on Hammo’s trip to entertain the troops in Afghanistan last year. The experience was clearly terrifying, especially a heart-stopping encounter during an excursion beyond the relative safety of the military compound and into Kabul itself. Even the security briefing made him blanche, and indeed the mental image that it conjures up with haunt you for days.

The trip – already something of a midlife crisis impulse – prompted Hamilton to question his own cosseted life and metrosexual masculinity compared to hard-as-diamond soldiers with nicknames such as ‘Buzz’ and ‘Chook’. Flying around Australia cracking funnies for a living would be even further divorced from the daily struggle of most Afghans, but that point’s only fleetingly touched upon.

However he measures up to the military men, Hamilton has got some skills of his own, and in a ‘words-are-my-weapons’ anecdote he proudly recalls how he intervened in a domestic dispute, even if he acknowledges such battles can’t measure up to the daily bravery in Afghanistan. The title relates to another, related, strand about leaving your mark on the world – even if it is only writing in wet cement – as Hamilton further reflects wryly on his life and his past in Australia.

There’s a certain emotional, thoughtful weight behind the stories, as Hamilton puts gravitas ahead of, or at least on a par with, the laughs – as many an established comedian does when he gets an urge to prove himself a serious artist. Hamilton’s no Daniel Kitson – who else is? – but being a smart cookie who knows what he’s doing ensures the well-structured hour holds the attention, while providing just enough elements of comic relief. A successful sortie into storytelling, then, but probably not special enough to get mentioned in dispatches.

Review date: 6 Apr 2014
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett