Claire Hooper is a charming, sweet and often whimsical comedian who has not been around the traps for a long time but has managed to build up a bit of a following and been luckily enough to find herself on TV becoming a bit famous. She seems as surprised about this as anyone and addressed this to some extent, in this show, which seemed to be about the good and not so good things that happened to her over the past year or so.
Claire begins by joking about overly needy friends and then explains that when we bought a ticket it was in fact a contract whereby she gets to be the needy friend getting her troubles off her chest and we get the benefit of laughing at them. She goes on to talk about the joys of getting Foxtel, her relationship with modelling shows, living in her house in a crappy part of North Melbourne, getting married and married life, her general social awkwardness, Kevin Rudd’s first year, her ‘mild’ depression and her dog. She had said it was going to be a show about troubles but it was so light and chatty that it was a bit hard to discern where the troubles were. Oh depression….mmmm….ahhhh….I see. Gradually I could sense there was a darker thread under this cheery show that seemed to be only hinted at. References to crying in public places, crying in the backyard in her Pjs over sudoku, being threatened by the local drug addicts and street people, fame making her feel like she’s walking near naked in the street, a house break in and thoughts of death.
Claire seemed to jump from topic to topic without much connection. It took ‘til the end of the show to find some connections and realise that the random fart joke had a deeper meaning than you anticipated. I can understand not wanting to repel her audience by making it too heavy, but sometimes the audience wants to be taken into those dark places by a skilled comedian who can find the comedy there, because as she points out at the beginning of her show, laughter can be a powerfully healing force. Claire kept the audience engaged and laughing throughout her show, but I felt it needed a director to bring out the theme more, give it some structure and turn it into something special.
Visit the Comedy Festival Website for booking details.