8:30pm 3 April, Powder Room, Melbourne Town Hall
The perfect combination of jokes about language and cringey stories about social awkwardness and a fear of yelling, make Paul F Tompkins a bit of a story-telling delight.
Note: on the poster he looks a lot more like Kevin Kline than in real life.
I have to say I'm really enjoying going into these shows not knowing a damn thing about the performers. I haven't read the festival guide and it's almost like I just ticked some boxes on a list.
So we wandered into the show tonight with the casual nature of people who despise queuing. This means that we sat right at the front. I like doing that. It kinda feels like the comedian's performing just for me.
So this was like an hour of a very personable fellow trying a bit too hard to impress me by telling me a story about his life and it's obscure brushes with the rich and famous. Ordinarily, say at a dinner party, I'd find this behaviour extraordinarily tedious. With the artifice of a raised platform, however, it meant I could drop my cool man facade and just laugh and cringe with abandon at this legitimately funny story telling.
Paul F Tompkins is hilarious almost despite my eye-rolling at his three piece suit style affectations and that somehow makes his show even funnier.
I bashed out this review on my iPhone using the WordPress app, immediately after seeing the show, while at dinner at China Bar.