Nights at the Festival—18 April
Thursday, April 19 2012
I saw the Pajama Men approximately seven minutes after having a complete, public nervous breakdown. Thanks, Public Transport Victoria, I’ll see you in court.
Anyway, it put an incredibly sour turn on proceedings. As I looked up at the ceiling of the Princess Theatre while wandering to the dress circle with twinwife, I saw a Dorothy the Dinosaur balloon stuck amid the pretty old paintings. I often feel like the out-of-place, one dimensional character somehow affixed to things more beautiful and with a greater right to be there, but BY GOD IS IT NOT AN APPROPRIATE TIME TO RELATE TO A BALLOON WHEN YOU ARE WALTZING INTO A COMEDY SHOW.
The crowd lapped up the Pajama Men. Their brand of humour relies on crafting slightly askew caricatures of trope characters, with a few out-of-the-blue, absurd additions, like a bird making the noises of a porn star or an alien with a talkative forehead. The dozens of characters eventually cohere to form a strange little narrative with time travel. Those last two words should alone be a guarantee that I will adore something.
However, I laughed about six times throughout the show. Mostly at jokes about stabbing. There was one with a dagger that I particularly enjoyed. They also had a fellow, Kevin Hume, playing folky songs behind some montage-style scenes, reminding me that what I’d love to do is go home. Go home and listen to Nick Drake and The Clientele until I actually meld into the low thread-count cotton fibres of my bed sheets.
But the show was probably great. Twinwife loved it, as did one of the chaps I’ll be Law Revue-ing with in a few months.
And then there was alcohol, and I started to feel better.
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