It’s Not Big, It’s Not Clever is structured around an internet poll in which respondents were asked to rank words in terms of offensiveness. “Mark Butler”:comic presented the top fifteen words as polled by Australians while making comparisons to the English results.
In presenting the profane list, Mark made a guessing game of the words by offering definitions and clues for the audience to decipher. Mark was essentially getting the punters to do his dirty work, so he could come across as an impartial academic and not have to utter those words himself. This was an interesting concept as Mark has been known to utter plenty of those words in his usual stand up routines.
Along the way Mark presented plenty of facts about the origins of profanity. I was impressed with the research that he had done for the show and the way he was able to put a humorous spin on what could at times be a rather dry topic. For the most part, this was achieved by working in seemingly unrelated bits of stand up material that somehow linked into the topic at hand. The topics with more tenuous links were used to lead in to the definitions of the swear words.
In his discussions of racially based profanity, he was afforded the opportunity to include some playful teasing of ethnic languages which at times came close to being offensive, but it was a shows about offending others after all!
He made use of some interesting audio segments, particularly his opening involving a radio and the use of profanity in modern music. The staging of the show was fairly basic, steering away from the PowerPoint presentations of other shows, instead relying on some simple yet effective props.
Mark has put together a hilarious and extremely informative show. Both students of Etymology and connoisseurs of profanity will have a fantastic time.
”It’s Not Big, It’s Not Clever” is performed Sun to Thurs until April 26. Visit the “Festival Website”:http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/season/2007/show/103/ for further details.