9:30pm 14 April, Bosco Theatre, City Square
There was a time when Simon Munnery was probably in the top 3 comedians in the world. The first half of this show is a reminder of that time.
Each line Munnery utters has multiple levels to it and is probably also interrupted by an aside that adds a couple layers more. It's a pleasure to watch. It's the mastery that we saw in Alan Parker: Urban Warrior and The League Against Tedium, but he stood before us in a two-piece suit doing what was essentially straight stand-up; That's something I haven't seen him do before.
Unfortunately he can't keep that energy up for the whole show and the second half starts to drag. Even when watching a Simon Munnery show drag, it's still better than pretty much anything else you could see.
A note about the venue: The Bosco theatre is just a tent. It's a tent on one of the noisiest corners Melbourne has to offer. It's ridiculously unfair to the performers and the audience. Nobody should ever have to compete with the ridiculousness of a man, dressed as a rabbit, playing the bass guitar. It's possible that the lag in the show was due to the noise or maybe Munnery just doesn't have the stamina he did 8 years ago. A lot has happened to him in that time. His material relies so much on pointing out the absurdity of real life but sometimes reality is too powerful to compete with.
Written using Plain Text, after getting home and while watching Top Chef Masters.