The Lunch Room at the Town Hall can be a difficult room as it comes with a constant rumbling of machinery, but in this show’s case I think the rumbling helped create the atmosphere of being in the rumbling bowels of a boat.
The show is set on a party cruise that goes horribly wrong in Port Philip Bay and the amazingly talented Justin plays all the bizarre and diverse characters on board. These characters include: The party girl, her brother who organized the trip and is obsessed with Batman, her boyfriend the cool rapper, Piggy who used to be fat and still carries the scars of being bullied, American Joker Jack hired to entertain on the misunderstanding that he was batman related and his Cockney side kick the penguin obsessed crim on work release. Justin also plays the relatively straight DJ Ralph, who is most like himself, his mother and the strange scary Beast on board who gradually possesses the characters. Joker Jack is probably the most interesting character; he’s the leader of a laugh club but behaves more like a drill sergeant or personal trainer.
The story is advertised as being like Lord of the Flies, but it comes across as more inspired by the TV show ‘Lost’ as well as the exposés recently done on Today Tonight about debauched cruise ships. The Captain of the SS Beelzebuzz dies of a drug overdose and the party are left to try to get help, though the only mobile phone is out of range. All of the characters have flash backs – ala ‘Lost’ – and a mysterious character appears to tell them not to go up on the upper deck or they will be attacked by the beast. The plot becomes very confusing and didn’t seem to have a real resolution, which is a pity because Justin is a remarkable performer with a dazzling gift for physical comedy. In the past he has had me out of breath with laughter, he can really give you a great belly laugh. But I’m afraid this show isn’t really the best showcase of his comic talents. It is just a bit too menacing and serious. Still he is always entertaining and the characters he has created are so different it’s sometimes hard to believe its only one man doing the whole show.
For booking details go to Justin Kennedy Beelzebuzz