A Rational Fear – Live podcast recording
Adelaide Cabaret Festival
(Review by Sarah List)
Described as Q&A on crack, Dan Ilic’s A Rational Fear fortnightly podcast travelled to Adelaide for the Cabaret Festival to stir up some satire. Aided by Lewis Hobba (Triple J), local talent Georgie Carroll and Jon Brooks, and ARIA winning superstars Bridie Connell and Wyatt Nixon-Lloyd, the stage was set for a cracking night of mixing music, stand-up, improv, panel discussions, and skyped additional guests.
Politics is a fertile grounds of late, and if we can’t laugh at the state of it we’d spend a lot more time crying. The evening opened strong with plenty of news fodder for comedic attention. Whether it’s our new fighter jets that can’t turn and whose aerials snap off at combat speed, or how SA can boost its flagging tourism numbers (let’s use the new jets to bring tourists in – they can’t turn around so people won’t be able to leave), there were lots of laughs early on. Connell and Nixon-Lloyd showed early why their talents have been so highly awarded, with a ditty that absolutely cut at the selective Christian values of our political leaders and their refuge and Manus Island policies. They invited the crowd to contribute ideas of issues within South Australia that they could help to solve by song (including the being shops closed on public holidays and the government shortfall in funding for just half a new Women’s and Children’s Hospital), and set about writing while the rest of the team continued the show. Their fast tracked writing was a hit with the audience at the end of the show, and demonstrates their absolute talent for musical humour.
Hobba, Carroll and Brooks each had some solo time in the sun on stage, discussing Grant Denyer, The Logies, and whether or not it was worth caring about climate change. There were also liberally smattered jokes about Adelaide throughout the evening. To be honest, it’s a bit tired to have comedians from the eastern states come to Adelaide, and tell jokes about how crap the city of their audience is. There’s so much other laughably ridiculous stuff happening around the world that relying on repetitive, low hanging fruit is both predictable and disappointing. Yes, we should be able to laugh at ourselves, but Adelaideans are expected to do it so frequently it would be truly fresh to have a show come from Sydney or Melbourne that moved beyond that. The Rational Fear podcast shows are generally better than that, so looking forward to seeing the next show fully focused on progressive satire.
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