This Friday night at the Regal Theatre in Subiaco was exactly what it says on the tin: three acts of said three nations, and comedy almost as straight forward as the titles archetype.
Englishman John Moloney is, at least in this country, most likely to be the recognizable face (an odd face it is too, on the body of a ‘KD Lang whose let herself go’ as he says) with appearances on Good News Week, Spicks and Specks and Merrick & Rosso’s World Comedy Unplugged. Even then, he wasn’t a theatre (let alone household) name, the audience largely coming in blind. Maybe I’m mistaken, as each nation DID seem to be represented heartily in the crowd. Regardless, it didn’t seem to matter; the crowd laughed the whole way through.
The acts seemed to be made of three MC’s: likable, cheeky, guffaw-getters able to confidently trot out tried and true material to get the crowd buzzing but never testing their limits. The actual MC, Aussie Jimmy James Eaton, was competent but unneeded. These journeymen had the confidence and steady hand of years hoofing around the circuit, no frills, old fashioned entertainers to the bone. The one surprise, for me, was how much the acts reflected their countries’ gentler stereotypes. I just assumed it was a handy ‘hey, that’s right’ title to cobble themselves together, but they were the whole enchilada (by manufacture perhaps, but preferably by magic luck).
The Limey, John Moloney, was first to invade our brown stage, and he was cold, quasi-cultured and contently miserable. His honed observational one liners and aloof act-outs saw problems in the world and he has the air of not bothering to fix it. He is an ex-German teacher (‘taught it, not used to be German’) and still strode the stage as if delivering a lecture, one hand behind his back, a sardonic un-pc PC of corporal punishing times gone by. His jokes were often very accurate, but with targets like fat chicks it’s hard to miss (no pun intended, although he had plenty).
The Paddy, Karl Spain (what a name, eh), was a rather happier fellow. Of course he was Irish. Jolly, round, twinkle-eyed and a story teller, from jokes about the famine to eejiits, he left no blarney stone unturned. To be fair, this seemed just Karl’s nature, and of the lot it was he that tried the most genuine (and quite successful) audience interaction, even if it was no more than smoothing fobbed lines and asking about occupations. Nothing new, nothing needed.
Which nicely (because I planned it that way) brings us the Jock, Geoff Boyz. He was Scottish: loud, sweary and…well, drunk. Mostly an act for his largely stock-standard material about hang-overs, kebabs and sticking life jackets up your arse (largely stock-standard I said), but he was on later and had a swagger so…maybe he got thirsty. While having good features (I was mistaken Geoff, too, has a famous face: Robert De Niro’s), his voice was perfect match for fellow Glaswegian Billy Connelly, and if you close your eyes, his material could pass as the Big Yin’s. Unfortunately, Billy’s was a hit n the 70’s. Geoff’s material about the silly in-flight demonstrations was borderline out and out snowclone cliché. Did anyone care? Not really, I didn’t.
Perhaps the show should have been Planes, Trains and Autopilot. Nobody pushed themselves, and the audience couldn’t stop laughing.
It breaks down like this: The Englishman mimed farting and sex, the Irishman talked about the soccer world cup, the Scotsman impersonated Joe Pesci flipping off Saddam Hussein as his finale. If this sounds like your kind of party, and the packed house thought so, then great. If you’re looking for focused introspection or flights of whimsy, then this is not your the tour bus down the mainstream road