Melbourne comedy festival review by Steve Bennett

Tessa Waters has spent the last couple of years shaking her stuff with enthusiasm, if not grace, in her dance-themed WOMANz show… and now she’s encouraging children to do the same.

How To Be A Rock Star is not, parents will be reassured to know, all about hard living through sex, drugs and booze. No, for these purposes, rock can include Taylor Swift and One Direction, and all you need to master for success is the power pose and the dance moves.

So trained clown Waters demonstrates various moves, from invisible hula-hooping to crimping, and gets the youngsters to follow suit. In keeping with the theme of her adult show celebrating the ridiculousness of the human form, she also gets laughs from waggling whatever body parts the kids suggest. To the same end, there is, of course, also a section on farts, that ever-faithful staple of any children’s comedy show.

Content-wise, it’s relatively thin pickings, but the youngsters – or at least most of them – love burning energy in the freestyle dancing, as they’re told to be awesome and encouraged to express their individuality. Which might have had more weight had not the stage been a sea of girls in near-identical pink – thanks, non-progressive parents.

And when then all get to walk to the stage through a corridor of high-fives from adoring fans, every one of them will feel like a rock star.

Review date: 3 Apr 2016
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett