Melbourne comedy festival review by Steve Bennett

Though he’s an agreeable yarn-spinner, George Zacharopoulos’s show feels like it could be more for his benefit than ours. A relatively new comedian performing his second hour in two years, Homeless Greek Sex God seems like a stretch – maybe 20 minutes of decent storytelling diluted in the name of forcing himself to turn over a new show quick enough for the festival timetables.

Like a Christmas round-robin, he goes into too much detail about where he lived and with whom, and the detailed logistics of splitting up with a girlfriend. No filter might be a good hashtag for Instagram snaps, but it’s not a great philosophy in stand-up, where there’s art in the edit.

Yet this British-based Greek is something of a charmer – both on stage and off, given the outcome of his sexual anecdotes – and makes for good company, even when the substance is slight.

The title refers to the brief time he spent in a hostel after a relationship break-up, though it’s not his best story. That concerns the hate-crime theft of his blueberry muffin in the Starbucks at Manchester Piccadilly station at 3am – an anecdote which bookends the show as he elevates the incident to an importance needed for structural reasons.

For the routines in between, he takes us through his year’s sexual and drug-related adventures; a self-confessed vanilla guy getting shocked to find anal beads in a date’s bedroom drawer, or dabbling in ecstasy for the first time in a bid to spice up his life – and because he thought it might be a good idea ‘artistically’.  Though the artistic, even comedic, merit of hearing other people’s drug stories is definitely dubious.

He’s certainly had some adventures over the year, but while they’re relatively interesting, he generally doesn’t do enough to ramp them up into strong stand-up routines. His relaxed but confident style is the old cliche of the ‘mate down the pub’ – but there ought to more to comedy than conversation.

There are moments that demonstrate more focussed flair, such as his original take on the familiar idea of how you’re billed if you die in a plane crash with someone famous, but for the moment, the affable Zacharopoulos feels like an ambitious chap over-reaching himself in a bid to learn his craft. A necessary process, maybe, but it doesn’t make for unmissable shows.

Review date: 5 Apr 2016
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett