Review by Steve Bennett at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Though named after a 1980s Canadian teen drama, Ben Pobjie’s dismal show starts with a weak Star Wars-style scrolling preamble, then plays an extended version of the Murder She Wrote opening credits. For no reason, and for no laughs.

Don’t think this is some sort of clever surrealist move, it’s just typical of the sort of random ill-considered, unfunny drivel that comprises the next agonisingly long 45 minutes. 

Pobjie claims to be addressing life’s big three issues of sex, food and art – claiming tongue-in-cheek the last is the only thing humanity can’t really live without. Though he’s managed a show without a whiff of it, so who knows?

Each segment is a big portentous spiel, grandiose but without meaning or humour and drearily delivered. ‘I’m trying to tell you something,’ he insists, patronisingly, as the audience stifle a collective yawn.  It’s a mess, not anti-comedy, nor whimsy, not meta-deconstruction, nor any other smart-aleck phrase used to cover a lack of jokes.

The nearest thing to a gag is along the lines of: ‘I’m a father, so I’ve had sex’. Or a supposedly ironic: ‘Sex is disgusting and human bodies are shameful.’ There’s no follow-up to that, that’s the big punchline.

He tries to break up the tedious monologues with bad poetry, bad musical comedy,  bad non-PC that Mark Latham genuinely sent, and eventually gets to a montage of the titular Degrassi Junior High, but with no explanation nor context. At every turn, the question is ‘why?’: Why is he doing this? Why did I get a ticket? Why won’t he stop? Please make him stop.

Pobjie mocks the comedy of Austen Tayshus – not the most sophisticated of stand-ups, admittedly, but surely you need a scintilla of proof that you’re funny yourself before tackling people who’ve made a living from what you are so clearly failing to do. (And yes, I realise the irony of a critic rating this)

‘Comedy is not just about entertainment,’ Pobjie adds, continuing his po-faced, self-important thesis. No, but it would be a bleedin’ start. There’s no evidence that he has put much thought into turning these ill-considered, first-thought ramblings into something witty, pertinent, or anything like an actual show. 

Review date: 6 Apr 2017
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett