So why would I go all the way to New Zealand to watch Wil Anderson? Like most Australian comedy fans I have seen Wil Anderson on television, doing guest spots, but mainly in his political satire show The Glass House and more recently as host of The Gruen Transfer but I have never seen him do a full live stand up show and this year Wil won the people’s choice award at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for Wilful Misconduct. Well it’s probably almost inevitable that someone off the telly would be chosen, and I think it’s great they chose a local performer but why Wil and why this year?
Wil Anderson is aggressive, shouty, sweary and takes no prisoners, he has all the hallmarks of a headlining Sydney comedian. The reason he is a star is because he is also intelligent, politically astute, charmingly playful and a finely skilled comedian. I had heard that last year his show related to the breakdown of his long term relationship and I thought that maybe he was going into interesting unexpected places. Not this year, though, the most personal he gets is to let us know that just like everyone else in the world he likes a wank. That may be another reason he is so popular, he tackles a lot of universal topics & keeps it all at a bit of a distance.
He’s been doing this style of comedy for many years now and is starting to cross the line from angry young man to grumpy old man. He begins his show this year by recognising this and embracing it. He claims to look forward to letting go of the incredibly intense young person who wants to consume the world as fast as possible and be able to relax and not be judged. Meanwhile he’s still pretty angry about stuff. Parents not taking responsibility for their kid’s obesity for example, which led to a lovely routine about Sesame Street. He’s angry about stupid people in general, the beautiful people in LA, the racism on Australia Day and dumb yobbos. I felt he tread a thin line on that last topic, his audience being peopled by quite a lot of dumb and drunk yobbos. They caught him a little off guard when a huge group of males up the back chastised him for drinking with his right hand (a crime in Auckland apparently) but Wil cheerfully paid the forfeit by sculling the beer and swapping his drinking arm.
If there were negatives to this show it would be that many of the ideas were not particularly fresh, legalising drugs for the elderly and the low point for me, aeroplane peanuts! The bit about wanking was very funny and I’ve seen him do it three times now, but it does rely heavily on him finding a teenager in the audience to embarrass and he went to such desperate measures to find one tonight that I was worried about how he is going to cope the night there are no young people in this 18+ venue.
Wil puts together a pretty polished show, his years of experience are evident and he gives the audience what they want from him., which is a great night out. There was nothing that really stood out as special and his rather tenuous ‘Darwin Awards’ type theme of having no sympathy for stupid people leaving the gene pool seemed a bit tacked on. Although I couldn’t really see why this show might be singled out, I can see that Will gave ua an hour of non stop laughs and solid reliable entertainment. After years of watching our Barry Award go to overseas comedians, I can also see why the punters chose to honour one of Australia’s most consistent and talented comedy stars.
Visit the NZ Comedy Festival website for booking details.