Review by Greg Gorton
Mike McLeish is a seasoned performer, with credits in acting, improv, comedy, musicals, and every other performing art you could consider (besides clowning I guess?). His new show for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival starts by taking aim at the silliness of such a career choice, but it soon veers into something more personal - a show about family, about friendship, and about avoiding the fact you're about to turn fifty.
McLeish’s strength is in his musical comedy writing. If I had to make comparisons to explain his style, it would be Paul Kelly learning comedy from Flight of the Conchords. There's a little bit of silly, a lot of sincerity, and a tonne that middle class Australia can relate to. While there are no ground-breaking ideas, it isn't a show that requires them… there is still too much to laugh at in big cars and pubic hairs for these topics to go out of style.
The vulnerability, when there, is powerful. There is one section that would touch everyone connected to the Melbourne comedy scene and I wish that the world could experience it. A personal story that told me more of McLeish than anything prior, followed by heart-wrenching song filled with love, life, and a little humour. For a good ten to fifteen minutes I was transported to something so far removed from the unsteady show before it that I was sad to come back. And while the night ends on quite a high, I wonder if it would not have been braver to let us sit where we were.
Between the songs, McLeish has a relaxed style of presentation - sometimes too relaxed. Off the cuff conversational moments are a difficulty, but rehearsed stories and segues shine. McLeish also struggles to tie his pieces together as neatly as they need to be. I recall a moderately funny song about sex as middle aged parents that I at laughed many times through…. but I don't recall how it ends. I remember a crazy story about an addiction to an iPad game, and I remember what came next, but not how they were connected in any way. The most obvious example above these, however, is a relatively sincere song that is followed up by a verse of “the silly version” he originally intended. I couldn’t help but immediately ask “Why didn’t he tack that on? Why interrupt the song to tell us it was about to become a joke?”
This show also includes something that McLeish is proud to shout from the rooftops - his daughter, Finn, directing. Finn is an emerging director in Melbourne and I suspect that it won't be long before Mike will be unable to afford her. While I sometimes struggle to see how directors improve things for their comics, tonight it was clear. Even in the simple understanding of when a performer needs to “turn the dial down” or “go big”.
I suspect the younger McLeish may have had a hand in the narrative structure of the night, as well as some minor punching up - there is certainly a flavour of a young person's sensibility that old men like McLeish and I just couldn't fake if we tried. I will be very interested in her next projects and, if she remains in the comedy cabaret scene, how she will continue bringing something new to the table.
For an enjoyable little bit of harmless laughter, and a punch in the gut, I'd definitely recommend this slightly raw, but quite funny, comedy cabaret.
