In just under an hour, the audience of the “55 Minute National Tour” are taken on a wild ride as Sammy J embarks on a whirlwind tour of Australia. Transportational problems, phone calls from The Devil and a political joke that never works are all endured by our favorite Skinny Musical Comedian.
Video segments show the journey of Sammy as he travels from city to city. We observe his dilemmas as missed flights lead to various modes of alternate transport. There is news and reviews of Sammy on the local radio station (always getting his name wrong) as heard the following morning on his clock radio. We see him constantly rewriting his only political joke (taken from a pocket guide to the Federal election results) as he travels. We even get to hear entries from his personal diary.
At each gig, we witness Sammy trying to endear himself to the local audience (ie. us) as he performs a tight five, including most of his classic songs. “Some people say”, “Britney” and “Political Baby” (accompanied by a guitar playing Bob Hawke) are all included in Sammy’s musical mayhem. His political joke always goes down like a lead balloon, but we as an audience ensure that he always gets rapturous applause at the end of his “set”.
Sammy has constructed an awesome story to go around the performance of his many songs. It is tightly scripted and performed to perfection. He is even able to work a few audience members into the plot after some brief audience interaction during his “first gig” in Brisbane. One lucky lady became his love interest for the rest of the show while a gentleman was derided for his fashion sense in multiple “cities”. Another spot of audience interaction resulted in an improvised joke that was used as a lead in to his classic Graph Joke.
There is an interesting subplot involving a prophesy by Satan which comes to a head at the final Melbourne “gig”. I was also impressed with the way Sammy worked some the ideas from his songs into the actual story. For example, his conversing with feathered creatures while traveling was a clever call back to his “Bird Interpreter” song.
His use of video is fantastic in showing the action taking place outside of the comedy clubs. This slickly produced footage showed an animated trail of his journey in addition to the scenes of his travel aboard various unsuitable vehicles. There was even a self referential line about continuity that tickled my fancy.
Sammy has put together one hell of a show. Not only do we get to hear his hilarious songs and usual strange stage banter, we get to witness his fantastic acting ability. The audience are able to warm to Sammy’s wacky character and get sucked into the crazy story. This is definitely one of my highlights of the festival thus far!
Cast your Peepers over Sammy J’s 55 Minute National Tour for all the booking details.