For a top night at the comedy festival, you can’t go past Justin Hamilton; he’s a man who knows how to give an audience a good time. In the past few years you may have seen one of his highly acclaimed narrative based shows, like the heart wrenching trilogy ‘3 Colours Hammo’, the dark ‘Killing Joke’ or last year’s beguiling ‘Goodbye Ruby Tuesday’ where Hammo proved himself a consummate story teller. At the same time though, he also managed to showcase his exceptional skills as a straight stand up comedian. It always thrills me a little to hear him do some new hilarious material around the comedy traps every year and then discover how it forms part of his carefully constructed festival show. This year Justin has decided to deliver a show that is pure stand up, there is no over arcing story as such but there is a very personal theme going on about growing old without giving in to becoming conventional and dull.
Justin has good intentions, he doesn’t want to hate annoying people, he doesn’t want to spoil his friends parties, he doesn’t want to wreak revenge on his unfair ex employer but he can’t help it and it’s fun. He realises part of this is because he is a comic, always seeking material but there is also the fact that society has always given comedians the freedom to say and do things that might go beyond conventional or socially acceptable. Justin delights us with tales of the many ways he finds to play naughty games, whether they are for his own private amusement, having fun with friends or taking things a bit too far to please an audience. One of my favourite of his games was human tram tetris and it got a huge laugh from the nerds.
Justin rails (not for the first time) about how all his friends are settling down and becoming boring (for some reason I can hear Shirl singing ‘All My Friends are Getting Married’ in my head) but I can’t help but wonder, why is he so resentful? Is it the fear of being left alone with no one to play with anymore, is it suppressed jealousy or is it the shock of discovering that maybe his friends who seemed so interesting while on drugs were maybe actually quite boring underneath it all? Justin seems to think that his problem stems from the 21st century’s ill defined Malehood. He’s the third male comedian I’ve seen this festival talk about the changing role of men in society and how men used to train for war, now they collect action figurines. Maybe this is the equivalent of women coming out to joke about being independent in the 80s.
Justin Hamilton is a storyteller of the 1st order, and he is one of the best comedians in Australia who isn’t a household name. His wild tales of living the life of a single stand up comedian who doesn’t want to grow up will make you laugh from start to finish, if you like smart comedy there’s a lot here to think about, but if you just want to relax with a beer and friends, Hammo is also the right choice.
Justin Hamilton – Idiot Man Child runs until April 17th. Visit the comedy festival website for bookings and further details