Michael Workman: Mercy
Live Review
Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Michael Workman has followed up the show that won him best newcomer at last year’s festival with another beautiful, artful piece of storytelling to warm the spirit.

Set in 1962 Cuba, it tells of a young, new father, Augustus, torn from his family after daring to challenge the Castro regime in an obscure newspaper. Exiled to drift endlessly in a fragile boat on shark-infested seas, he embarks on a poetic, dreamlike world of low-ranking angels, cabbages with personality, and sage star-makers.

It’s a yarn that exhales charm with every sentence, backed by Workman’s dreamily maudlin keyboard-playing and captivating pen-and-ink drawings, many of which are displayed on a chunky home-made Sixties-style television. It all creates an enchanting world to envelope the audience.

Workman is a mesmerising storyteller, with a deep, rich voice and a hugely expressive face, heightened by his bleached hair and jet-black eyebrows. And as a writer, lyricism leaps from every line.

Gorgeous though it is, Mercy sits uncomfortably under the category of comedy. Its aim is to enthral – tick – more than elicit chuckles. Workman occasionally breaks off the narrative for more obviously comic sections, such as his jaunty shark facts, which again usually, if not quite always, demonstrate a distinctive command of the language with imaginative phrasing and well-crafted puns.

But such comedy elements are not as organic as they are in, say, one of Daniel Kitson’s stylistically similar storytelling shows – but the fact this relative newbie can be mentioned in the same sentence of Kitson without embarrassment should be all the endorsement you need.

Workman has created an altered reality that’s a joy to visit, without being mere empty whimsy. He weaves plenty of philosophical thoughts into his narrative, culminating in an exquisite and illuminating ending that makes perfect sense of all that has gone before. Warn your throat… it’s about to get a lump in it.