‘If Charles Barrington’s ambition is to die doing what he loves, then last night he succeeded.
On stage.
For 50 minutes.’
That’s probably a slight misquote of a possibly-fictitious review that Charles Barrington – gadabout, problem drinker, professional liar (i.e. actor) – reads out at the beginning of his new show. At least, I’m pretty sure the review is made up, as I couldn’t find it on the internet. But even so, it sounds very much like something a snarky reviewer might say, because Charles Barrington really does love dying onstage – and audiences love it too. Meanwhile, the actor who plays Charles Barrington (is that his real name? No one knows) sometimes seems to like dying onstage too.
As a comic creation, Charles Barrington is pure genius – he feels real, and true, at once deeply familiar and disturbingly unique. A readymade celebrity has-been, you can imagine Barrington getting shitfaced in an airport’s VIP lounge with Hasselhoff, Sheen and Shatner, then vomiting on an air hostess – and it all ending up on YouTube.
Barrington loves puns, non-sequiturs, hyperbole, ad-libs and mumbling. His delivery is pitch-perfect (mostly) as he regales the audience with tales that begin, for example, ‘Recently I purchased an old Indian burial ground…’ These preposterous anecdotes just keep going, long after it seems possible for any mere mortal to extract humour from the likening of Hollywood actors to wooden objects.
Unfortunately for die-hard Barrington fans, there’s still a lot of old material in the mix. Bits that had me in stitches three years ago were only mildly funny this time around. On the other hand, some of the newer stuff towards the end of the show – a half-hearted Shakespeare rap, and a moderately amusing Dutch fable about Natalie Portman – felt flat and lacking in theatrical clarity. Barrington should focus on doing what Barrington does best: not much. Just standing there, drink in hand, aura of bizarre hilarity shimmering around him.
‘I’m not a comedian,’ Barrington says, ‘I’m an actor. If the jokes don’t work – blame the material.’ Coming from the creator of the show, this kind of meta-comedy is gloriously dizzying – but it cuts both ways. There is an instability, a constant awkward blurring between the deliberate awful banter of Charles-Barrington-the-actor, and the accidental badness of the actor-playing-Charles-Barrington, or perhaps the laziness of the writer-director. The first kind of badness is genius, and I could watch it all night. The second kind of badness is not so much fun, a sign that more time needs to be spent in the rehearsal room.
One day, hopefully, Charles Barrington will be compared to Andy Kaufman and Sacha Baron Cohen. As long as he puts the work in.
Rating: 3 stars out of 5
Charles Barrington – One Character or Less
Comedy on Collins, Melbourne
2 – 6 April
Tuxedo Cat, Melbourne
11 – 21 April
Melbourne International Comedy Festival
www.comedyfestival.com.au
27 March – 21 April
