Melbourne comedy festival review by Steve Bennett

This is a show of two halves.

In the first, Steen Raskopoulos is on territory familiar from his previous one-man sketch shows. Very familiar in some cases, as we get reacquainted with his Greek Orthodox priest/film reviewer or the pitiful Timmy, the small boy putting a brave face on being ostracised yet again.

It’s a theme he returns to in the r&b rap he delivers from the standpoint of another child, this time abandoned at a supermarket checkout. This is a comic highlight, alongside the trailer for his fictional movie, The Bad Boy of Yoga, and a skit about the practicalities of being a phoenix.

But in other scenes, it feels like he’s treading water. His vampire, for instance, could almost have come straight out of What We Did In The Shadows. And the audience interaction that showcases his improvisational skills is less demanding on his ‘volunteers’ than some of his previous shows – which will be a relief to many  – as he plays simple word association games or asks for interpretations of the ink blobs in a Rorschach test. 

All these scenes are themed around an interrogation, apparently in some sort of prison. Raskopoulos the inquisitor asks Raskopoulos the subject where he was on the night of May 26 last year, prompting a series of flashbacks and other diversions.

In the final act, all that has gone before is thrown into sharp relief with a sudden, jarring, gear change, in which Raskopoulos sheds all the layers of character to expose the real him, and reveal the reasons he creates what he does. It’s an intense and moving dramatic step-change that packs an emotional punch, very much as Hannah Gadsby did with the more powerful moments of her multi-award-winning show of last year. 

As with Nanette, it’s hard to categorise this soul-baring as comedy, as its impact goes deeper. It certainly provides a memorable payoff to a show that might otherwise have been dismissed as more of the same.

Review date: 11 Apr 2018
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival