Sam has a very specific sense of humour. You’ll either love him, or want to walk out after the first 30 seconds.
Sam says this is his third year at the Brisbane Comedy Festival, and in 2016 he won the Director’s Choice Award at Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Reviews of previous shows are glowing, with words like “genius” tossed about liberally. Expectations were thus high.
But you have to be on the same wavelength to enjoy said talent.
Sam is in a smaller venue, and performs with all the main lights on. When you enter the room, every single seat has a reserved sign on it, perhaps part of a joke that is never actually referred to. Part of his shtick (or at least, it is hoped that it is part of the show) is to come across extremely unprepared to be on stage. He forgets his jokes, gets very, very frequently sidetracked, and stresses how bad he is at audience interaction. Of course, when this stuff happens once or twice in a performance, it can be charming. When it seems to happen once per minute, it can just be frustrating. The show seems to be a million bits and pieces of half thoughts, that never come together as a cohesive whole.
There were some really great parts of the show; the opening video was really interesting and some of his jokes had great timing. It is a bizarre show, with milk dances and egg yolk and all kinds of off-the-wall antics. As one audience member said later, it is really important to have this type of show as part of a festival, as they bring something new, interesting and unexpected.
However, all of this was undercut by discriminatory, crude jokes that were not just offensive, but in this day and age are passé and boring. Referring to 'poofters' repeatedly, for example, doesn’t push boundaries. Similarly the C word for no particular reason. Flashing up a photo of an obese man with his ding-dong out, seriously? Is that funny because he’s fat? Or is it the penis that’s funny?
Sam has found an audience. People at the show laughed along with all his antics, and those chatted to afterwards were full of praise. However, if you weren’t a 'Beavis And Butt-Head' fan back in the day, maybe find another show to go and see.
