Wil Anderson - Wilosophy

Review: Someone really should have told Wil Anderson that he was doing a show at the Opera House. It's a good thing that he apparently sleeps next door with a headset mic on, since it meant he could leap out of bed and come straight on stage in the crappy bedtime T-shirt, having quickly pulled on skintight jeans and a pair of thongs. Support act Sam Bowring did the right thing by not being anywhere near impressive enough to take attention away from the headliner, and while he got some polite laughter his set has left an indelible blank on my mind.

Then Wil took to the stage and began gabbling at a breakneck pace (possibly first night nerves, possibly something stronger) through a show that was often hilarious, but somehow weirdly unsatisfying. Anderson's a smart guy and a sharp comic, but the need to a) keep to the implications of the show's title by looking at the problems of the world, and b) need to tie the whole thing together into a satisfying conclusion meant that much of the show felt like he was simply flipping through a checklist of Big Important Issues, many of which have been dealt with in a similar manner by many other comics. His longish section "the war on drugs is over, and the drugs won" seemed a pale shadow of Bill Hicks' similar and fiery routine of the early 90s, and his Jamie Kilstein-lite bit on gay marriage would have been appropriate for the US but seemed oddly over-the-top in this show, since the issue hasn't (yet) divided Australia in the way it has in the US. That said, his piece of childhood obesity was hilarious, as were his complaints about his seven-and-a-half-month sexual dry spell ("But I'm on the telly!"). And when one joke drew "oooohs" from the crowd, his quip "That was too far? Wow, you're really going to hate my Make a Wish material" cracked the room up.

All in all there were more hits than misses and it's good to see Anderson prowling a stage again, but maybe the show needs a little longer to settle into shape. And coming on stage to rage against the machine and not calling the show 'Willing in the Name of' was a missed opportunity. Andrew P Street