The Good, The Bad and The Elderly

The Good, The Bad and The Elderly is a quaint and heart-warming comical  personal journey by Tanya Losanno; a twice Moosehead recipient, she performs at this years Melbourne Comedy Festival. The show explores identity, diaspora and caring for elderly parents, all to the tune of Ennio Morricone - the Italian composer famous for his movie soundtracks.

Losanno strongly identifies with the Clint Eastwood character - the man with no name - in A Fistful of Dollars. Wearing the signature poncho and hat she steps out onto the stage and procedes to tell us about her identity crisis and why and how she connects with this infamous persona. It was in her twenties when she left the ghost town of Canberra, relocating right in the artistic heart of inner Melbourne where she lived a cowboy lifestyle, eventually marrying and having children.

Losanno knows how to spin a good yarn and hers, although no different to many first generation immigrant children, has developed a distinctive style that she can call her own. While battling her own personal anxieties, she shares hilarious stories of caring for her elders while bringing up the kids, after moving back into her childhood neighborhood.

The hearth of her life lays between the lasagna sheets and the crusty burnt bits, and her belligerent mother and deniably deaf father. Caught in the sandwich generation, she offers heartfelt and evocative comical detail that can make you  laugh while you cry.

Flora Georgiou