Review by Steve Bennett at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Most comedians end their shows with a plea to the audience to spread the word if they liked the show. Greg Larsen ends with a vow that next year’s offering will be better. Honest.

It’s not charming self-deprecation, but a frank acknowledgement that A Grub In The Muck just isn’t good enough. And when you consider that Larsen was part of last year’s great parody True Aussie Patriots and the TV comedy Fancy Boy, that’s a disappointment.

He made the odd artistic choice to be a sidekick in his own show - a spoof talk show in which he also plays all the guests. And the host? A broken one-armed, one-legged mannequin in a Smashing Pumpkins T-shirt, called Bruce Mumm and voiced by Ben Russell. 

With Russell offstage, there’s very little chemistry on it, strongly suggesting the idea of using a dummy that might have seemed funny in abstract should have been ditched long before now. And that’s a very common feeling in this undercooked show. There are some appealing moments of absurdity as a parade of pathetic oddballs take to the stage, but so often the potential of the initial set-ups is squandered.

First, and possibly weakest, is Ken Best, an expert of reducing stress who – surprise surprise – is very stressed himself. Then there’s Colin, the awkward bureaucrat from the city council, who gives the acknowledgement of country, but only after the statement about traditional Aboriginal land stewardship has gone through the fellas in legal. There’s a decent satirical point here, but the execution is laboured. Likewise, there might be something to be said about body issues with the character of food-loving Mick, but it’s not quite clear.

Larsen loses faith in his most distinctive character, Dennis, who apparently didn’t get the reaction tonight he usual does – causing the comic to mess up the timing and tone. ’This is the worst character in the show,’ the comedian says apologetically in a self-sabotaging move. That’s not true, as there’s something quite charming about Dennis’s nerdish obsession with the Mario Brothers, and the character’s dourness is written with enjoyable eccentricity. Larsen shouldn’t assume we’re not enjoying it, just because the laughs are muted, but when his conviction in the creation evaporates, so does the audience’s.

As ‘Mummy’ – oh so Freudian – Russell points out more flaws in the show (including Larsen’s sidekick role), hitting a little too close to home. The host figure represents the pressures to be safe and mainstream compared to the unpopular political material Larsen wants to do. In the end, Mummy bullies Larsen into humiliating himself as the low-rent ‘Senor Poop’ choking back the tears as he ploughs reluctantly through a grubby routine after his intellectual one bombs (this time deliberately, as opposed to the accidental misfires of earlier).

Like so much of what has gone before, there’s something in this, but it’s not been refined or edited nearly enough, giving A Grub In The Muck the feeling of a rather rough work-in-progress gig than anything like the finished product, even midway through the festival.

Review date: 12 Apr 2017
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