Review by Steve Bennett at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Damien Power is dealing with some odd audience members tonight: the woman who walks across his stage in search of her plus one, the man who makes a phone call from his seat to track down his mate, and the other bloke who takes a wrong turn in his search for the toilet, heading backstage in full view of us all.

The easy-going comedian engages with them well, keeping in check any irritation he might feel at the lack of respect they’re showing to his craft. Perhaps by the end of the hour they may have changed their ways, given one of the touchstones of this show.

For comedy, Power suggests, is one of the things every bloke in every pub reckons he could have a crack at, oblivious to the sacrifice and dedication it takes to achieve success. The dream is 2D, seeing the supposed glamour of being the centre of attention, getting the laughs, touring the country – without seeing the extra dimension of the dedication and sacrifice required.

He’s not so crass as to come straight in with the travails of his own chosen path, however. The subject is instead broached via his older brother Will (yes, Will Power, honestly), a champion Indycar driver, where the gulf between image and reality is even more yawning.

Power Jr skilfully exposes the distance between the average bloke who reckons his experience of the daily commute would make him a successful motor-racing pro, and the physical fitness, sharp reactions and intellectual abilities required of the sportsmen at the top of a tough game. And he primarily achieves this with an hilariously exaggerated grotesque of an emotionally and intellectually arrested motorsports fan.

He’s skilled at acting out the scenarios, is Power – although when he plays the bullshit-spouting fundamentalist preacher, it does go on a bit too long, as it becomes mainly for his self-indulgent enjoyment. The committed performance is an extension of the confident, charismatic stage presence and well-paced delivery that hallmarks his stand-up. You’d call him a natural, if that didn't undermine that whole strand about the sweat behind the superficial.

That’s not the only thrust behind the hour, which also scoops in the echo-chambers of social media, the desire to say something in his comedy (unlike the unnamed big-name stand-up he supported, but never respected), and spying on his ex- and her new pizza-king partner via the son they had together. Underpinning it all are his thoughts on the nature of happiness, though he never labours them.

He's not the pure insight that will shake the very way you think, but in Utopia 3D, Power will give you an hour of that happiness, and certainly with more substance that the shallow DVD-level comic.

Review date: 11 Apr 2017
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett