Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

Justin Hamilton is nothing if not ambitious this comedy festival, presenting a linked trilogy of shows, each one performed just two or three times. Each is also a standalone piece, however, to ease the commitment demanded of audiences.

The Ballad of John Tilt Animus is about the life of a fictional comedian, with the first of the triptych, Three Dances, mulling the dilemmas and compromises facing a working stand-up with artistic aspirations – considerations that surely prey on Hamilton’s mind.

Over a series of monologues, stand-up routines and chat-show appearances Animus discusses his existential angst as he filters life through the lens of stand-up. He’s become acutely aware that he no longer experiences life on its own terms, just as grist for material.

He also mulls his loneliness; the restrictions of a business that likes to put its comedians into boxes, mass-producing different versions of the same thing time after time; the shrill, unnuanced, voices of social media criticism; and – with resonances to the likes of Michael Jackson, Louis CK and especially Woody Allen – whether you can separate the art from the artist.

Hamilton raises interesting questions about the state of the art, answering some while leaving others deliberately hanging – but in a presentation that is heavily stylised.

Hamilton is an avowed fan of Twin Peaks, which may explain the presences of quirks like a reverse chronology, a repeated sequence of unexplained numbers, or the forlorn solo dances he performs after each TV interview.  However, such indulgences don’t seem to exist for any reason of narrative, rather they appear as affectations just for the sake of being ‘artistic’. As, perhaps, is the nod to Jungian psychology in his character’s name.

The conclusion, too, leaves Loose Ends hanging and is drawn out way too long, certainly far beyond the moment the point is made. It’s pretty unsatisfying, bringing little closure to the pertinent points Hamilton raised along the way. Maybe it needs to be seen in conjunction with part two, which is described as a murder-mystery.

For Three Dances is certainly intriguing, but it also feels unfinished and unpolished, and even over a 45-minute running time some segments feel over-indulged. 

It leaves the nagging feeling Hamilton might have been better advised to focus on one hour, rather than diluting his energies over a trilogy. But maybe that would be precisely the sort of clipping of artistic wings that this show rails against.

Review date: 1 Apr 2019
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett