From the advertising of European Man 1, with a bikini clad woman throwing herself at him, you would expect to witness a continental playboy in the vein of Marcel LuCont, looking down on cultures that are not his own, but this is not the case. With his accent of indeterminate origin and 90s dress sense, European Man is a wonderful creation in the vein of Steve Martin and Dan Ackroyd’s ‘Wild and Crazy Guys’.
European Man is a daggy foreigner who is living out his dream of being a comedian in a new land. His being a fish out of water was the main focus of the show with plenty of cultural and linguistic misunderstandings to provide the laughs. His bizzare tales of life in Europe and left of centre observations about Australia were the primary source of humour. On top of this, humour was derived from the actual delivery of the jokes. He was brilliantly inept, playing up on his ‘talent’ at stand up and moderate delusions of grandeur. For much of the show the laughs weren’t in the content but more in the telling.
The centre piece and ongoing gag of the show was the promise of some five star jokes. Through numerous phone calls to Dave in the warehouse (who was accepting the delivery of jokes) and the frequent promising of something special, he built up the comedic tension perfectly and ended it with an appropriately silly outcome. The involvement of an audience member in the telling of one joke was the icing on the cake.
There were some wonderfully silly segments involving his cat James Peterson. He utilised a flip chart and audio track as a clever device to have a dialogue with this feline friend. A song about the new love of his life was a delight with its clumsy guitar chord changes, silly lyrics spoken instead of sung and an hilariously long verse. A cheeky take on the ‘support local talent’ spiel was a nice way of stepping out of character while still remaining immersed in it.
This could easily have been a one joke premise stretched too far, but plenty of weird and wonderful elements had been added to prevent this. This character was well formed with plenty of wacky background to flesh him out, a result of having worked him up in Melbourne’s comedy rooms over the past year or so. A strange but completely charming fellow, European Man won the crowd over and kept them laughing. A highly recommended show.
For booking details visit the Comedy Festival website