Comedy fest review: Brendhan Lovegrove 20 Years
In 2006, I was nominated as New Zealand’s most offensive comedian. At the time I wore it as a badge of honour. I realise now that what I thought was “edgy” and “funny” was actually just “offensive”. So what I’m trying to say is I’ve matured somewhat. I didn’t win in 2006, I “lost” to Brendhan Lovegrove. Sadly, it seems, Brendhan has not matured.
And he would argue that nor should he. His show, 20 years, charts his start in comedy 20ish years ago and is his observations of things that have occurred over the past 20 years and where he might sit contextually.
Actually that’s not quite right. If that was the hour show we saw then it would have been an excellent show. What we got instead was moments of hilarity overshadowed by comedy that would fit back in 1994 when Brendhan first started. Or 1964.
Brendhan’s great strength has always been his rapier wit at denigrating an audience but remaining loveable. He’s a cheeky rogue, a likeable imp, yeah he’s saying mean things about me/us/them but at the same time he’s not really excluding people. Some argue that comedy is about creating a group-cohesion. Of them versus us, and the dominant us being with the comic and laughing at the outsiders. By the end of the show however, Brendhan’s “us” consists of older white men who hate how the world has changed.
The loveability of Brendhan seemed to have evaporated last night after the first 15 minutes. The crowd gave him a fair hearing and laughed along at his more clever material and chuckled at some of the edgier stuff. But then we were subjected to every offensive trope you could imagine short of Brendhan blacking up and doing a minstrel show.
There was a long gag that revolved around the fact that Asian voices sound funny (replete with not just one, but two mock Asian voices), there were jokes about how only Indians love cricket (replete with mock Indian voice), we got an impression of a gay man that included a feminine lisp and an inability to play sports, but worst of all was the misogyny on display. He hectored a poor woman in the front row about whether or not she was shaven and for no end. There was no punchline, just a creepy guy up the front asking a question that is none of his fucking business. But the nadir of the show had been moments earlier. One of the things I try to do with my reviews is not reveal any punchlines to gags because that’s spoiling the show. I’m going to make an exception in this instance.
Brendhan asked the audience if there were any women under 24. One person called out, so Brendhan invited her on stage. He had a bar stool on stage and he commanded that she sit on it. Then he commanded that she grind on the chair. She did so embarrassed. Then he said she could go back to her seat.
Then he sniffed the fucking seat.
Had I not been reviewing the show I would have walked out at this point.
There is a wider treatise that has probably been written about the enabling of negative behaviour by comedians. And there’s a lot of arguing about what is and isn’t appropriate. My own personal take is that your humour can be offensive IF it’s not demeaning a group that is repressed and gaining nothing for the experience. If, however, your material is ridiculing the people who actually believe that bigotry then it’s good stuff. Brendhan did not fall into the latter category.
By standing up on stage and making fun of foreign sounding people, making fun of gay people for their feminine characteristics and for belittling women into a place of second-class citizenry, Brendhan is actually creating a “safe space” for bigotry. One that allows people to think it’s funny and acceptable to behave that way.
When Brendhan got going on material that reflected his observations of where we’ve been and where we’re going he was excellent. He has a phenomenal ability to wring every last drop of humour out of his gags and it was such a shame to see him falling back on material we would expect from Jim Davidson.
Technically, Brendhan is a fantastic comedian. Thematically however he was appalling last night.
Show details:
Foxglove Ballroom, Wellington, 6-10 May, 8:30pm
Loft at Q Theatre, Auckland, 13-17 May, 8:45pm
Adults $25.00
Conc. $22.00
Groups $22.00
“Brendon is a fantastic comedian” Lord Such. High praise indeed; that quote will be going on his next poster.
I read this review with interest, as I had the unusual circumstance to see Tuesday’s opening show and Friday’s show as a friend had a spare ticket. I’ve heard comic shows are just template repeats. So I thought let’s find out….
Noticeably Lovegrove didn’t include the crass parts mentioned above. Even the template of the jokes had evolved, the scaffold was there but clever branches had appeared in a total intellectual contrast from Tuesdays show.
As for the Asian voices I felt they were told in a far less mocking way than the Australian voice. I find it interesting that people criticise anyone comically mimicking Asian accents yet not caring about Aussies or British accents. My mother is Irish, we often hear the Irish voice comically mimicked. Yet no one complains. Maybe because no offence taken. It just seems to be Asian accents that people notice… This shows me a prejudice in the critics opinion that there’s something wrong with an Asian voice.
I feel Lovegrove has a gift to mimic the comical aspects of many cultural accents and stereotypes. So yes he’s stereotyping, but much of humour is about our widely held beliefs. However what made Lovegrove a comic genius is he then challenges those beliefs by speaking fluent French in several different accents including a British lad and a particularly loveable Maori accent. My Maori friends I was with were in stitches, and I must mention a Chinese man who Lovegrove early interacted with was laughing hysterically during the Chinese rendition… And so was I.
True Tuesday’s opening show was like a bad day in the office, but Fridays show was of pure comical brilliance.