Josh Thomas – Let’s Tidy Up

When I first came across Josh Thomas in his TV show Please Like Me back in 2013, I was recently divorced, a single mum, and the embarrassment of the Greek community with my recent publication of Love and Fck Poems. The feelings of failure of not measuring up to being the good Greek girl and destroying my migrant parents’ hopes and dreams were immense and overbearing.

Enter Josh Thomas with his raw honesty. In the first episode he realises he is gay and his mother attempts suicide. It was raw truth from the get go. For me, it was liberating. Josh’s awkward yet endearing ways as he navigated life gave me much comfort that I wasn’t the only one struggling to fit in.

Fast forward to a post-COVID world, Josh tells us halfway through his new show Let’s Tidy Up we can just ‘skip over that bit’. Adding a stanza of the song ‘don’t you worry, don’t you worry child’, he continues telling one life story after another, and I’m sitting opposite Josh and, quite honestly, the show went from just over an hour and I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in my life – pretty much non-stop.

Josh tells us he doesn’t do metaphors or understand them, but the show, written in collaboration with Lally Katz, was a metaphor.

The premise is Josh telling us about a time in his life where he had to tidy up his house. Already we know, it’s a struggle for him to tidy his house. But as he tells that story, he deviates into personal stories, weaving a rich tapestry of tidying up one’s life and the struggle to find self-acceptance. 

I don’t know how much of this play was scripted, but as an audience member, it felt like some of it was improvised, like Josh was rambling his thoughts in an almost ‘panic’ to try and make sense of himself. In combination with the set – a table of mess, confetti rose pedals falling from above and scattered all over the floor – the improvisational element added a layer of intimacy. It was like I was actually in attendance at one of Josh’s dinner parties and he was oversharing one story after another to try and ‘figure himself out’. Josh lets it all out, all the ruminations, and by doing so, gives us comfort that it’s okay if you feel like a freak too.

From his diagnosis of ADHD and autism, to Lally’s commentary on the stigmatisation of herpes – delivered via a letter that Josh reads in response to his jab at herpes – this comedy show really is cleverly written. It is empowering, honest, raw, uplifting and funny. I recommend it to anyone having a bad day – you will feel great after this show. On cloud nine.

It is real and it is anything but politically correct. Josh unpacks and questions the profitable mental health industry who of course are going to give you a diagnosis if you pay $1000, to mean therapists we maybe shouldn’t listen to, to the rise in ADHD cases, which Josh says ‘you can’t all have it, some of you are lying’. Josh spills forth from his mouth things he shouldn’t say but says, his doctor telling him ‘just because you think it, doesn’t mean you need to say it’. But Josh’s uncontrollable urge to vocalise and express what is inside his heart is inspiring, especially in the world we live in today where freedom of speech seems to have flown the nest.

As Josh tries to ‘tidy up the mess’ he starts questioning the self-improvement industry and whether or not one needs to ‘tidy up’ and that people ‘don’t really change’. I could see Josh’s point here, but I didn’t fully agree because I changed. I was a quiet, repressed married good Greek girl and now I am a wild poet. Despite this, I appreciated his journey and honesty. I loved Josh’s show. I couldn’t get enough. I could have heard him tell stories all night. If you liked ‘Please Like Me’, you have to go and see it.  

Koraly Dimitriades

Koraly Dimitriades is a Cypriot-Australian poet, writer and performer and the author of Love and F—k Poems, Just Give Me The Pills and She’s Not Normal. Her theatre show I say the wrong things all the time premiered at La Mama.

https://www.artscentremelbourne.com.au/whats-on/2024/comedy/josh-thomas

Photographer: Daniel Boud