Atheneaum Theatre, Nov 22, 2013 (one night only)
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars:****1/2
Review also published in Herald Sun online on Tues Nov 26, 2013 and in print. KH
Rod Quantock is the Eveready
Bunny of Australian Comedy and he’s been joking for 45 hilarious years since he
first sauntered on stage in the Melbourne Uni Architecture Revue.
In his one-night-only
show, First Man Standing, he recounts highlights and lowlights of his
four-decade career as a stand up/sit down comedian.
Quantock is a comic subversive
and a political satirist whose comedy is guided by his principles and a boundless
need to scratch at social problems that plague him.
His casual, chatty
performance style feels deceptively improvisational, but his rigorous structure
is evident as he fills a huge blackboard with chalk scrawling, graphs, brain
maps and compelling arguments for social change and revolution.
Decades ago, his comedy bus
tours proved him courageous and fearless as he ferried his audiences around
Melbourne in a commercial bus.
Looking like an insane
jester, Quantock carried a rubber chicken on a stick while his audience wore
Groucho masks that made them anonymous and as intrepid as their leader.
He relates riotous tales
of arriving uninvited with his masked marauders at major events, one of which
was a Police Awards ceremony where they delivered a fake singing telegram to a
bemused copper.
On his later walking
tours (They have a lower carbon footprint!), he took a bunch of insurance
salesmen into a private home and made the resident’s night by washing her
dishes then inviting her entire family to dinner.
With his wicked and
engaging demeanour, louche physique and shambolic appearance, Quantock strolls around
the stage, making us feel as if we are in his lounge room having an intelligent,
animated chat.
Quantock is an equal
opportunity political satirist who attacks all political and socio-economic groups,
although Kennett and Abbott get the biggest serves along with bogans who give
their kids idiotic names – and stupid people in general.
He bends mad statistics with
weird logic to reach bizarre conclusions about controlling population growth (Who
do we eat first when the food runs out?) and, by doing so, he highlights the
social issues that have concerned him for 45 years.
Quantock’s incisive
commentary and acerbic wit are distinctively Australian with jokes about
dunking Teddy Bear biscuits, the Tim Tam’s role in social breakdown, our national
obsession with lawn mowing, and Melbournians endless capacity for apathy after
we lost our tram conductors.
He revisits his childhood
role as the Star in a Christmas pageant, his TV success in Australia You’re
Standing In It, his Comedy Cafe and Banana Lounge that spawned his Tram and Bus
shows, and his years protesting social issues.
Rod Quantock is a Living
National Treasure and, it seems, the only surviving, committed and hilarious
political comedian in the country. Long may he prosper!
By
Kate Herbert
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