Review by Steve Bennett

But it’s not that his career’s not taken off isn’t much of a surprise. For Jeffery has little idea how to channel that fury into comedy, or even at clear targets. Instead he yells and screams at ear-bleeding volume to his dozen or so punters, starting incoherent arguments he can’t ever finish. Sure, mineral water is a wasteful, unnecessary product – but you have to say more than that for it to be a routine. And if you could say it quieter, that would be nice, too.

Osama Bin Laden And The Tooth Fairy is a show that veers wildly all over the place; a haphazard catalogue of things he hates that might leap inexplicably into shouty, imagined advert for ‘Big Bertha’s sex line’.

His muddled thinking isn’t just a case of him getting carried away in the moment. He’s also produced video segments that are equally baffling, even though presumably he’s had time to thinh about them.

There’s a spoof news report about Sydney’s Cronulla – scene of a series racist attacks – which depicts a bunch of disabled people go on the rampage. Why? Don’t know. The fact that key scenes were shot directly into the sun, so you can’t see what’s going on doesn’t help. If there was a script, it’s repetitive and stumbling. I must have heard the irrelevant fact that the made-up suburn of South Cronulla is 15km south of Cronulla half a dozen times. This is not a man who knows how to edit.

Other video segments include clips of great US comics from Richard Pryor to Bill Hicks to George Carlin – which only serve to highlight the paucity of Jeffery’s own act – and anther which edits George Bush’s speeches so it makes it seem like he’s advocating terrorism. I’m sure you’ve received something similar in your email inbox at some point.

You can see germs of ideas in some of his diatribes, but they’re quickly smashed by his sledgehammer approach. Less would most definitely mean more – and that goes for the length of his show, too. When he started playing another video ten minutes after he was due to finish, people (me included) started drifting out – giving him just another reason to be angry at the world.

But if Jeffery wasn’t up to much, his support act plumbed new depths of badness. Two young lads who introduced themselves as High Five, they changed lyrics to songs so they sounded a bit rude, with such hilarious lines as ‘Wanna be a porn star/Touching titties near and far…’

There are plenty of other acts who do this sort of lazy comedy, but usually they at least have some performance ability. This pair looked ashamed to be there – as well they might – and their singing was so underpowered that many words were mumbled so incoherently you couldn’t make them out. Thank heaven for small mercies, I suppose.

As if embarrassing themselves wasn’t bad enough, they also tried to do the same to the audience, bullying four reluctant punters on to the stage to fake orgasms, as if this was some raucous 18-30 holiday night, not a quiet, midweek, comedy festival show. Good on those victims who outshone these appalling duo simply by saying something funny. Look it up, lads: funny.

Reviewed by Steve Bennett
Melbourne, April 2006

Review date: 1 Jan 2006
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett