Jeremy Elwood Thinks Too Much is an appropriate name for his show and not really a bad thing because he has obviously put a lot of thought and work into this show. It’s a very tightly structured show under a lot of subheadings of the things he overthinks. He begins the show though with what seems to be the usual Kiwi opener of going around the major towns of New Zealand and cracking jokes about the ones that are not the town we are in. He then did a bit of an intro to himself warning us that he doesn’t do whimsical, he hates the ukulele (Oh no!) and loathes Burlesque (yay!) We get the picture.
Jeremy is a very energetic and passionate comedian who has based his style on the likes of Bill Hicks angry, politically left and finding joy when he feels he’s offended some of the audience. Luckily he is blessed with a lot of natural charm and comedy writing skills. This is a very well put together and consistently funny show. Jeremy also used powerpoint well to help underline the subject headings he has put together of the things he is thinking too much about.
After talking about marketing and the demographics of the audience he moves on to the more typical topics of what he sees as the danger in the extremes of patriotism, politics, religion and how other people are stupid. He’s not the first comedian I’ve seen at the festival to crack jokes about the Christian fundamentalist church here called Destiny’s Church, or Scientology, but Andrew O’Neill will be heartened to know that although 357 New Zealanders said they were Scientologists in the last census, 1,167 said they were Satanists.
This is a show for anyone who enjoys living vicariously through a grumpy comedian who is able to articulate the sort of thing that annoys the crap out of most people but are unable to express it in polite company. His powerpoint support was particularly amusing when showing why it’s small minded to think that New Zealand is the best country in the world. In the end he tied it all up on a positive note with some rules for making the world a better place. I’m not quite sure how they related to the rest of the show, but he has clearly thought about it all a lot and it was funny so that’s good.
Visit the NZ Comedy Festival website for booking details.