Review by Steve Bennett

The big revelation in Jennifer Wong’s show is that she’s 31 years old. For she is as shy and unassertive as the most self-conscious teenager, afraid even of using the phone.

This debut show feels like the highlight of a High School public-speaking symposium. By those standards you’d pat her on the head and congratulate her for overcoming her nerves to orate a fluid narrative that holds the attention.

But on comedy terms, that is the very least you expect, and this is far too mild a monologue to make any impact beyond: ‘Well, she’s quite sweet’.

Timid, bookish, quiet, polite – these are the sort of adjectives she attaches to herself, but not necessarily what you want in a stand-up. Her stories are sometimes quite interesting, such as when she talks about depression and the bizarre anti-racism poster she spies for post office workers, but there’s no oomph to the delivery. But the ‘quite’ is significant.

She can write eloquently and with a pleasant whimsy, and there’s more than the occasional wry turn of phrase, but that is a different skill set to natural funny bones. Delicate gentility is not enough.

Review date: 19 Apr 2012
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival