Ahn Do: The Happiest Refugee

There is a reason why Anh Do is a featured performer at Adelaide’s OzAsia Festival. He is a passionate promoter of all things Australian whilst maintaining the values and unique experiences of an ‘Aussie battler’ in the guise of a Vietnamese refugee. A man who has worked tirelessly to better both himself, and others, he is multi-talented, multi-faceted and fearless that self-belief and hard work will overcome even the harshest start in life. He is the living proof.

Based on his award-winning autobiography, with the aid of a screen, a few props consisting of discarded bales and debris from a sea journey, the audience was treated to a solid hour that felt like an intimate 1:1 chat with the man himself. Such is his following, that a diverse, mixed audience almost fully filled the theatre, hanging on every word, relishing every film clip, laughing out loud, applauding rapturously and falling silent when he shared moments of personal palpable pain.

He is a self-deprecating multi-talented creator whose early teachers believed he would never read or write. His father, a sapper for the Australian army during the Vietnam war, fled Vietnam with his family, surviving unbelievable deprivation and a pirate attack that left them penniless, with many others being brutally murdered. Fate led them to Australia, via Malaysia in 1980. Do was only three at the time. Suffering crippling PTSD, his father abandoned the family, leaving his mother to raise their three children, moving them over 20 times during Do’s childhood, usually just a step ahead of the jaws of poverty. Unbelievably, what had once been a notorious truant, Do completed his HSC with 98% and subsequently completed five years of law at university. Having been raised poor, he chose comedy over law, thinking he would bring financial stability to his mother and brother and sister faster, and whilst comedy is one of his gifts, it is certainly not the only one.

Starting his working life as a jobbing comedian who took the better paying harder gigs, he is also a natural artist who did not embrace his art between the ages of 13 and 35 but won the Archibald Prize for his portrait of indigenous legend, Jack Charles. He later won Book of the Year for his autobiography, The Happiest Refugee, and has graced stages and television as an award-winning comedian and television host. His jaunt on Dancing with the Stars had to be seen to be believed as both he and his mother were stunned when the man who could not dance became a finalist.

The show interleaves live storytelling with photographs and film, creating an experience that was spell-binding, coherent, never static or boring in illustrating a life story that is relatable, laugh out loud funny, sometimes confronting, but always entertaining.

Supporting other local talent, Australian comedian Joel Osborne opened the show. Focussing on Australian idiosyncrasies, his jokes were fresh and bad language free. He, despite starting the show late, foregrounded Do well.

Do is a unique, lovable, and a one of a kind. Is there anything he cannot excel at? I, for one went away, inspired, happy and waiting for the next instalment.

Jude Hines