I’m not ordinarily into character comedy, I’m not ordinarily into musical comedy, but Otis Lee Crenshaw is anything but ordinary. As it happens, I am into country music and I am into clever, adroitely delivered comedy. This perhaps explains my affection for the Rich Hall alter ego, Otis Lee Crenshaw.
The show is billed as “Featuring Special Guest Rich Hall”, and this promise delivers in the form of an opening spot by Rich in his own delightfully crusty persona. Impressively this opening set is bang up to date topically and, also impressively, Rich manages to weave some truly original material into the biker war. This is a refreshing change after seeing Dave Hughes’ woeful attempts on this topic at the Gala. Rich also traverses the local colour, doing more than paying lip service to the fact that Adelaide and Sydney suck and Melbourne is awesome. His take on the global financial crisis and it’s relationship to the Hubble telescope is an inspired spasm of detestation and his ability to recreate tales of his homeland demonstrate his accomplished and endearing ability as a storyteller.
Audience banter was also on the cards and Rich played well to what was a slighly strange audience on the night, which clammed up when asked for responses and would then offer ‘helpful’ suggestions when unheeded. The extensive experience of this comedian really shone through here, turning what would otherwise have been awkward moments to his favour.
The band, comprising Dave Lindsay, Myron T Buttram and Australia’s own Mick Moriarty, took to the stage providing the kind of interval filler that young comedians could learn from. This brought the main act of the night, Otis himself, to the stage. For those still unfamiliar with this persona, Otis is an ex-con turned Country Musician from Tennessee who has been married six times, each time to a woman named Brenda. It’s over a decade now since Rich first created this character and he has long since departed from his correctional institutional orange jumpsuit, but Otis simply doesn’t get tired. Being part of a band gives Otis the opportunity to deflect a lot of humour onto his poe faced band mates, with long term accompanist Myron T Buttram providing many of the big laughs of his own accord. The surprise dissapearance of Mick Moriarty mid set brought with it some level of bemusement, which Rich again turned eloquently to his own favour.
The set included some favourites, such as Do anything you want, Till the cows come home, and the George Forman Grill song, as well as a new number focussing on the eternal beauty of Bundaberg Rum. Also, familiar to fans, is the improvised song about one of the audience members previously interviewed. One of my beefs with a lot of musical comedy is that the songs so often consist of one or two jokes spun out into three minute tunes. The beauty of Otis’ songs is that Rich knows how to write a song which is fuelled with humour all the way through, and he knows exactly how far to take it before the joke wears out. Once again, young musical comedians could learn some big lessons from this talented comedian.
I think though that the real key to this character is his well roundedness, and the soft affection with which Rich handles him. Sure, Otis might be white trash, he might be coarse and bitter, he might be an uneducated ex-con, but Rich imbues him with a delicate wisdom and an ever lovin’ heart.
Wheather you’re a fan of old or completely new to Otis, this show is a must see of the festival.
For further info and booking details go to Otis Lee Crenshaw Featuring Special Guest Rich Hall