This show seemed like it was gonna be a banker. Written by Bart Freebairn and Tommy Dassalo and featuring Dave Callan, on paper this show has a lot of promise. Unfortunately, that promise isn’t realised.
The show begins with some computer generated satire as well as the opening titles. The opening titles give it a kind of bad sitcom feel, something that isn’t dispelled as the show progresses. The way jokes were set up and then delivered, with pauses allowed for the gaps where the expected laughs go, made it seem like a prerecord without the canned laughter. The way this show is performed left me genuinely wondering if they were going out of their ways to do comically bad acting, or whether it was just actual bad acting. The introduction of Dave Callan raised the level of performance skill certainly, but Dave was still performing to the script written by Tommy and Bart and this left him little room to move. Above all the material, which made Two and a Half Men seem like Shakepeare, left me wondering where it had all gone so dramatically wrong.
In 2005/2006 Tommy teamed up with Dave Bushell in a show called I Heart Racism. In that show they delivered a lot of over the top, inflammatory, racist remarks. This got laughs and really worked because they were massively overstepping the line of taboo. In All The Single Ladies Tommy and Bart seem to be trying to do the same thing, only this time with off colour remarks about women. Here it doesn’t work, they’re not breaking any taboos, they’re not making remarks that are absurd in their offensiveness and as a result they don’t sound funny, just immature and unpleasant. So these aspects, including the constant littering of words like ‘boner’, ‘man sack’ and ‘vag-j-j’ through the show, as well as Dave Callan’s oversized penis prop, just have the result of being quite tedious.
Now I realise that these devices have been employed to illustrate the characters, which are parodies of fairly repugnant, isolated single men who have no idea about real women and form their ideas and develop their identities over the internet, but therein lies another problem. Parody or not, there is no depth or dimension to these characters. I understand that these guys aren’t meant to be the most self aware characters in the world, but in this show Tommy and Bart have delved into a kind of parody that is as sophisticated as the limp wristed parodies of gay men in the sixties and seventies.
In another contrast to I Heart Racism, which was directed by Adrian Calear, the absence of a director for this show is glaringly obvious. They really needed someone with skill, proficiency and honesty to step back and tell them these things before it came to the point that a reviewer has. The script lacks clarity or sophistication and the interation between the characters lacks dynamics.
The people involved in this project are all extremely talented and I will continue to follow their careers with great interest. But this show far from represents the best these guys can do.
For more info and booking details go to the Melbourne Fringe Festival website