HAND TO GOD

Hand To God is much like the sex life of Barnaby Joyce, good fodder, cheap entertainment, and bearing all the hallmarks of some nasty car crash you can’t help but want to watch in all and every bit of gory detail. But apart from this, it’s pretty slim pickings and should be approached most certainly, with a five drink minimum prior to the performance.

Does this even manage to fall into the category of being so bad that it’s good? Almost. But more could be done to ham it up, and really give us something to sink our teeth into. The ensemble don’t really believe enough in their roles for us to suspend belief or to find any resonance with the farcical world, it would be easier to find relevance with the story of a wet fish. Not helped by the material which isn’t anything new, gags have been without apology or novelty ripped from the jaws of Avenue Q. Worse is that the central concepts of American Christianity have already proven over the years, great source material for some side splitting comedy – it’s hard to not cast your mind back to the mid nineties and Absolutely Fabulous as a strong example. But, here, your mind is left screaming in private anguish for something better, something else, something other than this tawdry mess of a show. At times, you really want to heckle the performers to either get off the stage, or get on with it, because the final curtain call, here, never comes soon enough.

The production itself does try very hard to craft something of quality but is ultimately held back by the limitations of the Alex Theatre: like most of this performance it’s in desperate need of work and attention, needing to be dragged back to the rehearsal room kicking and screaming and not allowed to exit until it’s had a good, hard, long look at itself and made considerable efforts for self improvement.

At least in some warped reality Joyce has his dick that he can blame all his poor choices on: unfortunately, this show is bereft of any such excuses, and therefore should be avoided like the plague, for fear that such bad experiences should continued to be offered up or taint your perceptions of the local theatre scene, for Melbourne can and does do so much better than this. Next.

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PERFORMANCE