Colour me disappointed. I read about this show and was intrigued, so much so that I went out of my way to squeeze it into my schedule. This guy is a sculptor clown. I’m a sculptor too! He’s come all the way from Portugal. You don’t do that on a whim! His show is produced by Dick the Horse, Adam Hills’ production company. Hillsy would never lead us wrong! I really wanted to love this show. But I didn’t. I really didn’t.
Pedro emerges onto the stage, with a small trolley of props, dressed in fairly traditional clown attire. Pedro performs silently. That is, until he uses words. Upon revealing some props, he instructs, nay commands, the audience when to cheer and when not to cheer. This kind of maniacal, spoilt child act can really work beautifully for a comedian, when it’s done right. In Pedro’s case he comes off more like that obnoxious drunk at a party who keeps shouting everyone else down, constantly insisting that everyone “LISTEN TO ME”. On top of that, his ‘tricks’ are pretty rubbish (but not in an ironic Tommy Cooper kind of way). But we were all made to cheer. He does some stuff with a broom and then spends the rest of the show making balloon shapes. I’m not six years old. There is certainly a structured attempt to build up tension before he comes to the climax of his tricks. But I failed to get excited by the prospect of him throwing a broom in the air. Again, I’m not six years old.
In fairness, some of the audience seemed to warm to him and let the laughter begin to trickle after a while, but that was more at the expense of humiliated audience “volunteers” than anything else. And I’ll give him this; he’s pretty good with balloons. But I didn’t come for a balloon show. Not six years old. At one point I feared I was going to become violent if I was harassed by Pedro into applauding for another fucking balloon shape. I could also do without the childish knob gags. I’m really not six years old. In fact, maybe Pedro would be better off pedalling his wares to the under tens. I’m not trying to be sarcastic or mean, I really think he would. I’m certainly not going to laugh at him, supposedly accidently, holding a long balloon where his pee-pee is. I’m thirty seven years old for fucks sake!
At the end of the show Pedro took off his hat and red nose and gave a little speech about how he is not doing stand up, and that he is bringing something different to the festival. He seems to be under the misapprehension that we’ve never seen a clown in this country. In fact we have stellar local examples of vastly superior, original and sophisticated clowning, in the form of The Birdman and Daniel Oldaker and The Boy with Tape on his Face from New Zealand, to name a few, none of whom are reliant on ‘balloon art’.
Not warm, not likeable, not relatable. I wish I hadn’t bothered.
For full booking details go to the Melbourne Comedy Festival website