Arj Barker starts his new show Keeper or Crapper with a joke which is lengthy, heavily interwoven and is my new favourite joke!
This show is not themed particularly but there are several callbacks and interwoven ideas which work well to tie it together. For those particularly observant audience members out there, you’ll notice that the thing he promises not to do at the start is the exact thing that he does do at the end. It’s also always nice to see when comedians incorporate current events into their routines. As well as some banter about the foota, his material about the Sydney dust storms was inspired.
This show is called Keeper or Crapper so, although it’s not stated explicitly in the blurb, this suggest that this is another show trying out material. And indeed some of this material is hit and miss with some jokes and areas falling flat. The flat areas, though, are due to tightening issues rather than the core material itself. For all that, when Arj hits his straps he shines.
Arj’s great talent is to combine acidic clarity with muddled naivety. He’s part angry young man, part yogi and part fool. His anti political correctness works beautifully due to his emphatic and resolved commitment and he does a surreal spin on subjects like no other, with a diatribe about why snakes are angry being a particular stand out. This is not a finished, polished show, but when Arj is good, he’s very, very good.
For more info and booking details go to the Melbourne Fringe Festival website