The Lion, The Bitch and The Closet is a pretty entertaining evening out, but it’s in the wrong venue. The acts from overseas are self-contained shows that would both suit a more intimate cabaret style venue independently. Also being relatively unknown here I can’t imagine that they will fill the cavernous Atheneum easily during this run. The shows are Justin Edwards as tragic children’s’ party host Jeremy Lion in “What’s the time Mr. Lion?” his 2005 show that won him the Chortle Award for best character act recently and Topping and Butch in their camp, out of the closet fabulous show “Pull out Now” from Edinburgh 2004 but with lots of new bits. Hosting and doing a stand-up set in between is our very own bitch Christine Basil. She holds the strange bedfellows of shows together nicely and sings a very funny song about her husband to the tune of The Supremes’ “My Guy”.
Jeremy Lion had a fab piano accompanist and a dark underbelly. The show is supposedly for children (warning! – Don’t take children to this show!) about a day in the life of Mr Lion, who gets up, goes to school, attends a teddy bears picnic etc does a puppet show and goes to bed including educational information along the way. The Shoolyard Rap being very clever and funny and the demonstration of “The Birds and The Bees” is hilarious. But there is a disturbing subtext about him taking on his father’s profession as children’s entertainer and trying to live up to that, his father having been a good entertainer, but not such a good father. And as Jeremy is haunted by his father, he gets drunker and the show degenerates. There are those who find drunks funny, unfortunately I just find them sad and embarrassing, so it was a bit difficult for me to enjoy the final drunken “puppet show”. I think I was a bit worried by the amount of cans of beer he sculled on stage, wondering how much of it was acting. His voice was very croaky and I also wondered if he was ill, because his energy seemed really low. Maybe I saw him on a bad night. There is a flu going round.
Topping and Butch could not have been more of a contrast, energetic, charismatic, topical, bubbly and fun. These guys really do need an intimate venue, because they love to build relationships with members of the audience. They also need a savvy audience who can keep up to speed with their witty, clever banter. They opened with a rather confronting, but funny, song about S&M, which would’ve had some of the very straight audience members shaking in their shoes a bit, but we soon get to know their warm friendly, down to earth side. They have a song where they fit in gags about Australian current affairs, a song about ‘coming out’ to your father (to the tune of Cat Steven’s ‘Father & Son’) a rather left-handed tribute to fag-hags, a history of the Iraqi war in a song and a big finale rap about the important issues of mobile phones and Home Shopping. Happily Topping and Butch announced they were hoping to return to Melbourne later in the year. I hope they are able to build up a good fan base here, and get a more appropriate venue. I must confess, I love them to bits.
For booking details go to The Lion, The Bitch and The Closet