Thursday 3 April 1997

Rhona Cameron, April 3, 1997


Rhona Cameron
Melbourne International Comedy Festival
Melbourne Town Hall 7pm until April 20, 1997
Review3ed by Kate Herbert around 2 April 1997

Rhona Cameron is as cute as a button. She bobs about on stage gently joking about being short, being drunk, being teased about being Scottish, being jet-lagged in Melbourne.

Cameron is not a belly-laugh comic, which is a great relief after twelve shows in a week. Her material has broad appeal. She jabs at stuck up shop assistants and her new obsession with the gym, which followed giving up drinking.

Much of her material is about what a strange child she was, which it is evident in her "haunting eyes".

Her relationship with her mother and her miserable, lonely childhood going to caravan camp both take a beating.

She muses over drunken males who flash their genitalia about at parties and wonders why it's not the done thing for women to do the same to celebrate a big night out.

At the end of her set, she slips in the fact that she's a lesbian. It is a terrific trick for an audience who might think, "That's not like my life. I refuse to relate."  She has them on side already and it is a delightful strategy for levelling the audience and interrupting the silly prejudice of the ill informed.

We're all the same, she wants to say. Lesbians are just other people with other partners.

Cameron is a charming and engaging comic with some sweet material. I liked her a lot.


KATE HERBERT

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