Saturday, March 19, 2022

KIRSTY WEBECK SILVER LININGS

 


Kirsty Webeck -Silver Linings. 

 The Piglet Room. Gluttony. Rymill Park. Adelaide Fringe  March 8-14 2022

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

The Adelaide Fringe is in full swing and in the Piglet Room at Gluttony  Kirsty Webeck is on top form. For those who don’t know, the Piglet Room is an old container on its side, lined with lights and open to the audience who sit on chairs in Adelaide’s shining sun. It’s not the usual place for a comedy act, but Webeck could turn a black box into a shining stage of gags and laughter. It’s been a while since I first saw Webeck at The Front in Canberra. It was the early days of a career that has taken off and at her latest show, Silver Linings, it’s easy to see why. Webeck is just naturally funny. She exudes a mocking joy of life and a healthy disrespect for anything serious. Silver Linings is about managing expectations, negotiating conversations and winding her way through tricky situations and difficult relationships. It is this bounding enjoyment of the absurd and the ridiculous that Webeck weaves into her comedy act and draws in her audience by inviting them to judge the way she deals with confrontation and negotiation. Thumbs up if she has managed the tricky topic well. Thumbs down if she has made a hash of it. The audience in the Covid safe open air played along and Webeck kept her act rolling along.

You can’t help but be swept along by Webeck’s sense of fun. She is having the best time, laughing along with her material and giving her audience license to laugh. The nervous comedian at The Front has become assured and expert at the challenging career of stand up. Her stories are personal and even the funeral of a drag racing mate can be a source of ironic comedy. It is in the account of her proposal to her partner that Webeck has her audience in the palm of her hand. Her partner is a nurse, dealing daily with the challenges of Covid and Webeck had carefully planned a romantic proposal which naturally went wrong. That’s what makes comedy, and Webeck knows how to turn a serious situation into a barrel of laughs. How do you pop the question and present the sparkle when the first words your girlfriend says are “Your feet stink” That’s sure to put a dampener on things, but not for Webeck. This is one time when her natural honesty and love can turn the situation around.

Comedy is taking risks and stand up is knowing how to be prepared for anything. Telling her audience how much she dislikes first aid workers who have conjured up a first aid certificate, she asks how many in the audience have first aid certificates.  Whether she expected so many I don’t know, but undaunted Webeck carried on. If nothing else, you need to be fearless as a stand up comedian, and Webeck, who takes everything with a rumbling laugh is certainly fearless and the audience is in stitches at the account of a pompous first aid certificate holder edging in on Webeck’s partner to treat an injured player.

You can’t help but like Webeck. She is everybody’s mate, the kind of person you would want to have  a drink with when things were feeling a bit rough. She puts you at ease because whatever the problem, however gloomy the day, Webeck will always see the silver lining. Her show is not a Gatling gun of gags. It is about ordinary situations. It is about being who you are and being comfortable with it. It’s not all laughter and her thumbs up thumbs down routine gives an audience pause for thought. Above all Silver Linings is original, personal and innocently funny. Like all good comedy we see the ridiculous in ourselves and laugh at someone else reminding us that every cloud has a silver lining if only we can manage our expectations.  It is easy to see why when Webeck  listed her show as the last one for an audience to judge they all gave her an in the air thumbs up.

Kirsty Webeck will be performing Silver Linings at The Street Theatre for one night only on Thursday March 24 at 7 p.m.  Tickets are $32. Bookings: 62471223