Comedy fest review: Markus Birdman in Happily Ever After
First off, Markus came out to Tender by Blur. Which is one of my favourite songs of all time. So he started off very well. Secondly, he opens with a piece justifying his swearing and argues against the perception that swearing is lazy. I swear like a sailor, so far Markus is 2 for 2. And for the rest of the night he was hitting pretty well, winning a reasonable sized crowd over and earning a huge applause and cheer at the end.
Markus doesn’t so much arrive on stage as explode on it. He’s all energy and tension, pacing around the stage, yelling, and just generally being excitable. I’m unsure if his use of Tender as a juxtaposition was deliberate but if so it’s a nice touch.
We were given a crash course in his show last year, which was written after he had a stroke. He had a bit of survivor guilt and now fuck-it-all off we go. This year’s tragic event was breaking up with his partner of 14 years. And for the next 55 minutes we’re treated to a rage-filled rant, witty jokes, wonderful self-deprecation, a masterful control of callbacks all the while not really pushing too many boundaries in creative subject matter.
The majority of Markus’ show is built around the idea of love, and its many guises. Love comes in all sorts of forms for Markus, there is the love of his former partner, the love of his daughter and the love of his own hatred. He keeps harking back to his own rage problems and how difficult it is to be near close to him, but by the end of the show I think the crowd was firmly in Markus’ camp. Despite any perceived shortcomings in his own personality he’s got a wonderfully charming stage persona.
This is real comedy-as-therapy stuff. Markus channels all his frustrations and disappointments at his life over the last 12 months, and himself in general and just blats them out to the crowd. We laugh, we listen, we sympathise and then we laugh some more. The material earlier in the night gets the biggest laughs, however from my own snobby perspective I really enjoyed the latter half as he got more and more creative with his gear, bringing up some beautifully (revoltingly?) evocative images .
From a strictly originality perspective, Markus’ material wouldn’t win any awards. We get standard comic tropes, the differences in perceptions of the world by men and women and I get a little uncomfortable by some of his gender-based pigeon holing, however I had just come from Reginald D Hunter’s show, so I may have been particularly sensitive towards that. Other people who I’ve spoken to who didn’t see Reginald beforehand had no issues with it at all.
Any lack of creativity however is more than compensated for by wit, delivery and timing. And his use of the callback has been unparalleled for me this festival, even if the crowd didn’t quite pick up on all of them. He also uses the pull-back and reveal really well, leading the crowd down one path, only to stop us dead in our tracks with something completely unexpected.
Overall, Markus’ show was a really enjoyable hour, and has been one of the better shows I’ve seen so far this year.
Show details:
Markus Birdman in Happily Ever After
San Fran, Wellington, 6-10 May, 8.30pm
Adults $26.00
Concession: $22.00
Group (10+): $22.00
