Lawrence Leung proved himself an accomplished entertainer with his show Lawrence Leung Learns To Breakdance. Maybe it’s because he had been performing it since April at the Melbourne Comedy Festival and more recently in Edinburgh. His performance was effortlessly effervescent. The pre-show music was 80’s style hip hop, but Lawrence quickly assured us that “This show is not about Breakdancing”. Phew. It was really about his quest to become cool, like his big brother. He’d struck a bet with his popular bass playing brother that he could become cool before turning 30. He immediately undermined his quest by comparing his life to a Venn diagram, asking for advice from a Fonzie Myspace page and showing us his forte in the Melbourne stand-up world, a PowerPoint presentation. His family baby photos had the audience falling about, as did his impressions of his mum and the Melbourne Mayor John So.
Lawrence set up the shows structure for us early on. His quest was to be completed in four tasks that he had to conquer in the areas of fashion, women, cool attitude and dancing. So we knew from the title and the set up where the show was going to go and Lawrence didn’t let us down, thrilling us with his brave experiments, charming us with his stories and throwing in some silly surprises along the way.
By the completion of his third task he had realised the real answer to his quest and come to terms with his relationship with his brother, he didn’t really have to go on but Lawrence was committed and not going to disappoint us. So he grabbed a couple of equally co-ordinationally challenged friends and signed up to compete in a Break Dance competition at Federation Square. The results of their culture changing daggy breakdancing moves had to be seen to be believed. It was a cathartic and joyous end to a fabulous show. The appropriate post show music was Ben Folds singing “There’s always someone cooler than you”.
From it’s intriguing title to it’s cleverly structured mayhem, unthreatening audience participation, moving self-realisation and big musical dance finale, Lawrence sure knows how to put on a show!