KEVIN “BLOODY” WILSON

Australian stand-up artist doesn’t disappoint. (Review by Neebha Budhoo)

Kevin “Bloody” Wilson appeared at the Playhouse last week. As a fan of his for many years, having seen him perform in Australia in the late eighties, I was really looking forward to a refreshing bit of humour that broke some of the rules that holds so many comedians back from making it big.

Listening to the chatter from the audience members before the show, everyone was looking forward to a few hours of un-PC entertainment, and no-one was disappointed. We realised that everyone attending was almost chuckling at the thought of the delight that Kevin was going to give - an honest take on subject matter which would otherwise be construed as highly offensive in our daily life. And on some levels, everyone was grinning at that thought. Like a tacit indulgence. Definitely not for the prudish, I told my partner.

The show was opened by Jenny Talia (great voice), Kevin’s daughter, who ripped into men from every angle possible with every kind of verbal weapon conceivable. Her songs were crude, dirty, the language was out the gutter and yet she managed to engage the audience at every moment. I asked my partner how Jenny’s lyrics made her feel as a woman and she said: “Not any less of a woman”. Sometimes she was even laughing harder than I was. Jenny sang all her songs from a woman’s perspective but I’m not sure if she propelled a feminine agenda. I don’t think I would go quite as far as saying that. One could argue it, I’m sure. One could also argue she was every bit as good as her father, if not better.

“You can’t kiss at a Kevin Wilson Show” was my reply to my partner who in a moment of soppiness, asked me to furnish her with a kiss during the first five minutes of the show. And that I realised that was the stark reality of Kevin Wilson for her. I tried to explain that you needed a firm, steady set of gonads (metaphorical or otherwise) to sit through Kevin’s show. It was not for the faint-hearted; not in the eighties, not now.

It didn’t matter what race, religion or culture you belonged to, no-one was spared Kevin’s caustic tongue. That was clearly evident when a nice friendly couple sitting in front of us, who hardly twitched through Jenny’s introduction and looked as if they had been anaesthetized while she was performing, calmly got up and walked out 10 minutes after Kevin got on stage. We saw it coming. This was, of course, while almost everyone else was roaring with laughter, falling off their seats, singing along and filling in the blanks that Kevin cued.

Meanwhile, to our left, some raucous young gentleman decided that his opinions mattered more than the person whom everyone had paid to come and see and decided to start shouting them loud enough to disturb others, to which one brave lad asked him to shut up, and in true Kevin-style. The fracas that erupted left the inebriated one thrown out, doing in Kevin’s words the “last lager waltz”.

Recommended like Eno to digestive gas. - Neebha Budhoo