On the final night at the Salamanca Arts Centre for the Hobart Festival the audience were packed in like sardines. Hot baking sardines under tinfoil. It took an extra 15 minutes or so to get everyone seated before we saw both Tom Gleeson and Fiona O’Loughlin perform.
Tom did the first half of the evening and said how pleased he was to be working in a firetrap, because he loved setting fire to stuff as a kid. He began by letting us know that he wanted to tell us about purchasing his Monaro, but first…there were more pressing stories to tell.
Tom has been to Iraq. That’s what I call going to extreme lengths to get material for a Festival show! Tom, for some strange reason he didn’t really explain, decided to go over to the Middle East and entertain the troops. His rather casually introduced experience begins with being asked to create a Will before he goes and it gets scarier from there, including having to shake hands with the P M. His Tour of Duty included stand-up wearing a bullet-proof vest in Iraq, mountainous parts of Afghanistan, some other country that was kept secret from him and a private party with the SAS. They make for very compelling and frighteningly funny stories especially coming from the relaxed country boy Gleeson. I particularly enjoyed finding out that they had to build a Gym for the soldiers he performed to in Iraq because the canteen was so full of junk food the soldiers were all becoming overweight. I was disappointed that his whole show wasn’t about The Middle East. There is so much to work with even outside his own experiences, though I suspect Tom doesn’t want to get political about it. Political comedy has never really been his schtick.
He does get a little humorously political when talking about Global Warming. He thinks he’s getting more right-wing in his old age because he likes the idea of some of the consequences of Global Warming; sunnier days, ocean views in Fitzroy etc. He misses burning things in the incinerator as a kid and goes on to tell some more scary stories, this time involving his childhood buddies, setting fire to stuff and playing practical jokes.
Finally we reach Monaro Day and Tom does have a hilarious tale about buying his Monaro but I felt the home stories, brilliant & surprising though some of them are, belong in a different show to the war stories. That would make a really griping and unique Festival show.