The Wine Bluffs – Damian Callinan & Paul Calleja
Adelaide Cabaret, Friday 15 June 2018
Words Geoff Jenke
Damo and Calleja combine 30 years in comedy to take us through the cellar door to a night of wine comedy. They are “so called” experts in the wine industry, telling us they have recently judged wine at the Rockhampton & Monster Truck Show and owning a vineyard in the Northern Territory. Well so they tell us. In reality they probably only know as much about as wine as we, the audience do, but they certainly can tell a tale or two.
The boys come on stage dancing and are soon in the audience, picking a couple to join them on stage. It is soon obvious that these two can bounce off audience participation, in fact their whole performance is based around participation. They tell us about some wines they are marketing, named after famous Australians, like Malcom Turnbull, Pauline Hanson (“Obviously it is a red”) and Jay Weatherall (“This one is broken”).
Port Adelaide supporters and bogans came in for some funny stories before the highlight of the evening, the search for the biggest wine wanker. Everyone had to stand up and then sit down if eliminated by wine criteria, like have a cask of wine at home, don’t have separate red and white glasses. The eventual winner was a lady with a shipping container at home used for wine storage.
The first half of the show was basically wine jokes, but in the second half they showed us how to behave in a wine tasting room (or how not to behave). how to swill and smell wine with the help of a lady from the audience and how to open a bottle of wine with a cork, when you don’t have a cork screw.
The show was funny with Damian (Damo) playing the more “Ocker” of the two and Paul the smooth operator. The gags kept coming, often at the expense of members in the audience. Think you know everything about wine? Well check this show out and you may be surprised you don’t.
In the end it is light hearted enjoyable comedy that probably would be better suited at The Fringe than the Adelaide Cabaret Festival.
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