If there was a Fringe Comedy Festival attached to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, then this would be one of the best of the independent little shows I’ve seen. It was in a tiny room (of course) called the Carpet Room and it was a pretty outrageous show, not really for the easily offended. I sat behind two elderly people who did not cope at all, and sat with arms crossed and steely expressions while everyone else was wetting themselves. I hate comics who get a laugh simply by shocking you. It’s too easy, stop playing with your cock and write some jokes! This show, though confronting, is better than that, it is very funny but also genuinely strange, clever and you don’t often know what to expect. It is successful for two main reasons, the sneaky feminist intentions behind the story and the sheer charisma, charm and comic personality of Tessa Waters. She is a lot more impressive than the picture in the programme would suggest.
The story is about a lonely, single, slob who wants to improve herself and has a go at self help gurus on tape. Our introduction to Tessa is after a drunken night out, she’s come home and is getting ready for bed in her flat. Her brave, awkward, stumbling, anti strip tease to the tune of Tom Jones’ ‘She’s a Lady’ was hilarious revealing a true unconstructed woman, wobbly bits, hairy bits, the odd bruise and all. She’s only down to some bog standard undies, so no nudity, but it felt more vulnerable because she’s not airbrushed or waxed or made up, or plastic and she’s right there. After some funny, mimed drunken schtick and passing out in the aisle for a bit, she wakes and is shocked to discover the audience and her shame at being undressed & hungover. She never really speaks but occasionally addresses the audience with the odd whispered word or phrase. Our presence sends her on her self improvement journey.
The majority of the show is framed by an old fashioned pre Women’s Lib cassette tape she receives in the mail called ‘How to be a Lady’. The voice on the tape gives her 1950s advice which she follows in her own special contemporary way. She pops on the big underwear, that came with the tape and it remains her costume for the rest of the show, she then quickly falls in love and settles down to suburban life. I will warn you, at risk of spoilers that she falls in love with a rather large, pink, rubber vibrator. I’m sure that Tessa thought this sequence would just be side-splitting, but the audience’s first reaction was actually one of silent fear, with mild disgust and the odd explosion of shocked laughter. Ummmm, this has been a bit confronting so far, Tessa obviously has no shame, where is she going now??? But when the vibrator gets a top hat and some googly eyes all is OK and we can relax and enjoy the silliness of the rest of the performance, that includes a rather good and R rated puppet show.
Tessa Waters is an amazingly talented mime artist, like Frank Woodley in way, she can find humour in the most mundane of actions and has created a charming, daggy, clumsy, hapless character that you can’t help but love and sympathise with. More importantly this is a hilarious show about a young woman who discovers her independence and I felt some of the comic ideas here would not be out of place on 30 Rock, I just don’t think Tina Fey would be allowed to get away with it.
For booking details visit the Comedy Festival website