Pipsqueak trailer

For the 2012 Australian festival circuit

Tommy Dassalo: Pipsqueak
Live Review
Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Tommy Dassalo has long exploited his affable ‘favourite little buddy’ persona in quietly whimsical festival shows – but this year he’s chosen a topic of weightier substance, and built an absorbing and entertaining hour around it.

The subject is the aplastic anaemia he suffered as a nine-year-old, an often fatal blood disorder, often likened to a cancer. The seed for the show was apparently planted because Dassalo’s parents needed to clear out his childhood home ready for a move, and mementos of the illness were unearthed – as if cheating death was something he might otherwise have forgotten about.

Yet the set-up allows for an enjoyable preamble about his family, their links to Vegemite, and his father David’s many odd business ideas, from marmalade-making to coffee table design. Things kick up a gear, though, when Dassalo introduces correspondence between his parents and the American student who donated the bone marrow that saved his life, and the main story begins.

There’s no doubt to the seriousness of his illness, but Dassalo plays it light. After all, a nine-year-old has little concept of mortality, and his memories from that time are often frivolous or, in the case of the morphine-induced hallucinations, a little surreal.

His lack of awareness from the time is a recurring theme, from his request to the Make-A-Wish Foundation to his first trip to New York to thank his donor, when the attractions of the vibrant metropolis entirely passed him by.

It means a strong seam of self-deprecation runs through the story. There aren’t many mild-mannered comics mocking terminally ill children, but it’s surely OK if that target is the naivity of your younger self when faced with all manner of medical procedures not fully understood.

Not to spoil the ending, but Dassalo grows up just fine. And Pipsqueak demonstrates a growing up in his storytelling, too, into personal comedy with a bit of substance and even edge. This wittily-told tale certainly deserves a bigger audience than the dozen or so who made it to this early Friday evening performance.