Earlier this week, in response to the dust storms in Sydney, I heard one man on the news say something like: “I woke up and I thought it was the apocalypse, so I went to look out of the window”. An overly calm response to the impending apocalypse? Perhaps, but as Xavier Michelides shows us in The Post Apocalyptic Users’ Guide, there are any number of ways to handle the end of the world.
Xavier has aready performed a full season of this show, running it at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and this fact shows. This performance is tight, sharp and accomplished. Xavier parades a series of characters past the audience including an American soldier, an English housewife, a half man/half cockroache, souls waiting n line for heaven and even Jesus himself who makes an appearance to make some final judgements. The central character of a hack comedian tops & tails the show as well as providing a consistent presence throughout. He also presents the intriguing scenario of the comedian without the audience. These characters each provide an alternative apocalypse along with their own response to it. There are zombies, aliens and nuclear bombs.
As I said this show is very slickly performed and the material is tight with frequent laughs. However I was left feeling a little cold by the lack of emotional connection I could make with any of these characters or their plights. Whilst each vignette is professionally accomplished, each of these charaters is isolated from the other characters and is emotionally unavailible to each other as well as to the audience.
That said, this is a highly accomplished show from an extremely talented comedian, and it’s sure to bring laughs from any audience.
For more info and booking details go to the Melbourne Fringe Festival website