Denis Scott and Judith Lucy in Disappointments image via Arts Centre.
I couldn’t help wondering, as I made my way to Melbourne’s Arts Centre, what it was about the comedic skills of Judith Lucy and Denis Scott that warranted the stage of the prestigious State Theatre for their 90 minute performance, rather than the back room of a pub to which many of the 2000 comedians taking part in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival were relegated! With a show called Disappointments would I be disappointed? Surely the theatre wouldn’t be full on the second last night!
I couldn’t have been more wrong. It was full to capacity, with at least one male in every row, though the 76-year-old in the first row must have been wishing he were somewhere else by the time the searing wit of these two experienced performers had finished with him. You could say they almost disembowelled him, at close range, with their vivid descriptions of everything from Irritable Bowel Syndrome to Colonic Irrigation. Thankfully, the teenager, a few seats away was mature enough to laugh at the fact that one’s bowel movements, after the age of 60, become a concern of the Federal Government. Not so, however, when she was pressured for a reply to the question of whether she’d ever received a dick pic!
Oh, yes, they were shocking and naughty but the audience was with them every step of the way as they embellished the disappointments that came with being ‘over the hill!’
‘Who can be mindful when you’ve talking to Telstra or having a Pap Smear’
Why bother getting out of bed when you can drink your booze through a straw and not worry about incontinence!
‘I’m looking forward to a catheter,’ quipped Lucy.
The material was mostly well honed from an hilarious opening with a video of the women obviously enjoying their post menopausal years and staying ‘engaged with life’ to the reality of them, disillusioned, in their sixties, in single beds, bemoaning their lost years of excess, ‘stand-up’ being a thing of the past.
Lucy and Scott, both award winners for their talents as comedians and actresses, have perfected working together. Their contrasting looks and verbal delivery keep you on high alert in case you miss a word or innuendo. Their topic gave them a wealth of material and, when they finally crawled out of bed and headed to the stalls to persecute the unfortunate, the laughter was at fever pitch.
I can only say that if they had quit when they were ahead, that would have been more than enough but from thereon, they seemed to go their separate ways. Lucy retired to sit on her bed and leave Scott to continue a rambling story about her arthritis. Was this perhaps meant to be a hint at hovering dementia or did someone forget her lines? Maybe not, as, eventually, it seemed it was Lucy’s turn again and she arose to present her own soliloquy about the puerile lyrics in New Age songs. But, while well presented, it seemed like a loose cannon. The final verbal sparring match between the two, about whom they were and their past life achievements, left me in no doubt that the whole show was just too long. The exchange of insults was a detraction rather than an enhancement and became more and more distasteful from Lucy until it degenerated into what I have seen too much at the Comedy Festival and that is a reliance on very low grade humour for its shock value. It is far removed from the subtle wit of the late John Clarke, Jerry Seinfeld and Joan Rivers.
Fortunately, Lucy and Scott redeemed themselves, in the best way possible, by appearing in flesh coloured body suits and singing Advance Australia Fair in front of a video of Ayres Rock.
The sight of Denis Scott demonstrating her arthritic knee with a Groucho Marx walk across the stage is something that will stay with me forever, as will the memory of both women wielding long ribbons across the stage, to ‘Georgie Girl’.
All was instantly forgiven! What a gutsy pair who left their audience convulsed in laughter and with the wish that Robbie Burns expressed so clearly.
“O wad some Pow’r giftie gie us to see oursels as ithers see us!”
Rating: 3 1/2 stars out of 5
Disappointments
Judith Lucy and Denis Scott
will be at The State Theatre, Sydney on May 5 and May 6, 2017
