Melbourne comedy festival review by Steve Bennett

Wil Anderson has grown up with this festival and is now one of its biggest draws, packing big theatres and winning people’s choice award galore.

Admirably, he wants to use that platform to get across a smorgasbord of political opinions, much of it against the racism that often rears its ugly head: from the controversy of Australia Day being celebrated on ‘invasion day’ rather than federation day to boos aimed at indigenous AFL player Adam Goodes. 

Then there’s the party politics – Anderson is not the only comedian this festival lamenting the loss of the hapless Tony Abbot, the comedy gift that kept on giving – plus republicanism, climate change, gun control and more.

It’s commendable that he’s pushing this wide range of issues to a broad constituency that might not always agree with him; although that inevitably requires a certain amount of compromise. And compromise is the enemy of comedy. 

For example, he talks about his ‘leftie mates’ as if to disassociate himself from some of their beliefs, and he’s very careful to make sure none of his comments can be misinterpreted – thus excusing s a whole host of valid reasons why you might boo Goodes that aren’t racist, just in case that covers you. But it slows the bit down.

Despite this, Anderson is passionate about getting his key points across, wrapping them in his rousing matey delivery. Banter with the audience underlines that engaging spirit, tonight making some smart quips about the obsolescence of one latecomer’s job: working for Yellow Pages. However, he also over-mined the good thing, any by the end dropping ‘Yellow Pages’ in as a lazy trigger word into lots of jokes that didn’t need it.

The political segments were broad rather than they were deep, tagged to the mantra ‘we work better when we work together’, even when not entirely relevant. But for all his talk of the big, important issues which you often want in a comedian, what actually proved to be Anderson’s best work here are silly observational routines about baby giraffes and a buffet toasters, the latter becoming a gloriously slapstick first-hand story as he sought the perfectly brown slice.

Anderson’s political segments might be a little undercooked, too… but they are more than tasty enough.

Review date: 11 Apr 2016
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett