Eddie Perfect: Misanthropology

Note: This review is from 2012

Review by Steve Bennett

If Eddie Perfect’s comic voice was as strong as his singing voice, he’d be unstoppable. As it is, Misanthropology mixes songs of near-genius with tracks inspired by the most obvious comic observation. Impeccable showmanship and musical oomph ensure it’s a relentlessly entertaining hour, but sometimes you’re left waiting for a twist that never comes.

With his three-piece showband and spangly Vegas sensibilities, Perfect is a natural fit for the elegantly louche surroundings of the Spiegeltent. And where there’s a tent, there’s camp – as demonstrated by his neat introduction, juxtaposing portentous declamations about the evolution of the universe and humanity with the lazy ‘like, hello…’ sarcasm of the vacuous. It’s milked a bit too much – a charge you could level elsewhere in the show – but a good idea, well done.

He begins with a couple of well-argued song about the patronising Western attitude to ‘primitive’ tribes or the ecology of far-flung habitats, which are reasonably amusing – but things start to get really interesting when he sinks his sharpened claws into Kerri-Anne Kennerley and her ill-judged branding of alleged AFL date-rape victims as ‘strays’. The vitriol hits the deserving target perfectly.

Darker still – and all the better for it – was Daddy’s Tits, a disturbingly sleazy torch song inspired by the father who gave his daughter breast implants for her birthday. This is where Perfect really excels, mixing black humour with passionate performance and powerful production values.

Easier pickings were to be had when he sneers at Lycra-clad cyclists – which would be a hacky stand-up routine were it not for the music – while the epic mock-rock-operetta about the pretentiousness of modern theatre hits a target so big you could see it from space. If you have a bugbear about director Barrie Kosky, the refrain Too Fucking Long might strike a resonant chord, but for the rest of us Perfect’s sentiment is over-familiar, albeit delivered with an apt theatricality.

But through the highs and lows of comic invention, the consummate Mr Showbiz keeps the entertainment quotient high, ensuring the near-unpronounceable Misanthropology is undeniably great fun.

Reviewed at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, April 2011

Review date: 1 Jan 2012
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett

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