MICF - Lawrence Leung: The Man Who Stopped For A Sandwich | Melbourne comedy festival review by Steve Bennett
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MICF - Lawrence Leung: The Man Who Stopped For A Sandwich

Note: This review is from 2018

Melbourne comedy festival review by Steve Bennett

Since Lawrence Leung has themed his show around the humble bread-based meal, let us present the critique of his umpteenth festival offering using the ‘shit sandwich’ method.

He’s a super-engaging performer with a beaming smile, infectious boyish enthusiasm and a passionate intelligence. This show, however, is over-contrived and exerts a lot of effort trying to support that tenuous framework. But it contains one kick-ass mindreading trick that’s brilliantly impressive.

The Man Who Stopped For A Sandwich is Gavrilo Princip, the teenage Bosnian who assassinated  Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 19194, ultimately leading to the First World War. But he only got his fatal shot at the Austro-Hungarian heir because the royal car happened to take an unscheduled detour past the cafe where he was dining.

Thus Leung’s show is about fate versus coincidence. For if we know the current state of everything, shouldn’t science and maths be about to determine the future? And doesn’t that make a mockery of the concept of free will? The smart crowd likely to be drawn to a Leung show will most likely spot the massive loophole in that theory immediately, which the comic acknowledges at the end, only to waves away.

Great machinations are brought into play to try to link stories from his life to either sandwiches or Franz Ferdinand – the Scottish band proving a far more convenient link than an early 20th Century Austrian nobleman. And Leung has a great attention to detail to reinforce these links, even down to his incidental music, however fragile they may be.

But it often feels like he’s forcing a theme to jam his wide-ranging stories together somehow. And some routines feeling like they’ve been included because he can make a tangential connection, rather than because they have great payoffs. 

However,  =some of the routines are certainly up to scratch, not least an hilariously racist clip from a 1980s episode of Neighbours, or his alternatives to going back in time to killing the baby Hitler. There’s an engaging self-deprecation even when he’s showing off his clear intelligence – and those magic skills are awesome.

But like that titular sandwich, this show is ultimately unfulfilling: enough to tide you over, but nothing substantial.

Review date: 13 Apr 2018
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival

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