Review by Steve Bennett

Well, if you’re Courteney Hocking, you reinvent yourself as a right-wing comic, so you can use your well-practised scorn and sarcasm against the liberal new rulers. At least that is the intriguing theory behind Miss Right – although in its execution, Hocking doesn’t quite have the conviction to pull it off.

Instead, she’s careful to distance herself from anything that might come out as genuinely right-wing, making sure she starts with material about her disappointment, as a leftie, with how Kevin Rudd and his cabinet are turning out. And quips about him being a bit dull don’t come from either side of the political divide.

Sometimes the Miss Right pretence works perfectly, with Hocking teasingly following a train of thought towards an intolerant conclusion, leaving it for us to assume the irony, and work out how she led us along the wrong path. But it takes her quite a while to be comfortable enough in this guise to pull it off.

Her delivery though sparky, is missing something too. Much of this show sounds like a humorous essay she’s reading out, rather than the natural dialogue of a stand-up. But then she, unfortunately, had a tiny audience with little to react against. Even so, she has a nice presence about her, but seems reluctant to exploit that natural likeability too much.

There are some nice ideas here: that global warming is a reward from God, or about the unrealistic expectations of Generation Y, of which she is a reluctant member. This latter point, especially, seems something she genuinely believes in, rather than something she’s trying to fit into the Miss Right concept that generally sits uneasily with her.

This real Hocking with her real, passionate opinions is where she shines, and where she should concentrate her efforts. If this show was devised when she thought K-Rudd was the answer to her prayers, next year she’ll surely have enough disillusionment with the government to inspire reams of fresh material. Remember, hard as it may seem to think it, Britain’s left wingers thought Tony Blair was a breath of fresh air once, too…

Reviewed by:Steve Bennett
Melbourne, April 2009

Review date: 1 Jan 2009
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett