Mel & Sam - The Platonic Human Centipede
Mel and Sam’s stock in trade is satire - a kind of cheeky, cheerful frontal assault mockery of institutions, the phoney and the fashionable, sacred cows, and the just plain ridiculous. Mostly that’s via their songs – sometimes riffing off songs we all know, or more often their own fast-moving patter songs with lots of puns, internal rhymes, and shock (‘Did they just say that??’) lyrics.
But there’s also their deliberately clunky choreography (think very basic amateur ‘showgirl’ with lots of twirling and bump’n’grind), their choice of costumes (in this show it’s easily adaptable harem outfits), the disparity in their respective sizes – and the disparity of their stage personas. They’re always smiling, but Sam is kind of blank or waspish, and Mel is benign – in a nasty, manic kind of way.
Their previous shows were bound together by a common theme – or target. No Hat No Play (authoritarianism in primary school and how to beat it), Shit-Wreck (the ersatz ‘glamour’ of cruise ship holidays – set on the Princess of Tasmania) and High Pony (the culture and mores of suburban netball). The Platonic Human Centipede is about duos: sycophantic, ‘romantic’, symbiotic, inseparable, or commercially manufactured.
Please note the ‘platonic’ in the show’s title since otherwise that title refers to the notorious (?) shocker/horror flick in which a mad scientist sews victims’ mouths to other victims’ anuses… so that the second and third victim in line literally eat sh*t. That inserted ‘platonic’ here makes for a pointed and icky metaphor - and set-up for what follows…
But what follows is, we must say, rather loosely connected. The individual songs per se are just as clever and punchy but Centipede isn’t really organised coherently around its premise or central idea. It often seems a rather random collection of songs and brief sketches off the top of Mel and Sam’s heads. Without that central idea that their previous shows have had, the familiar choreography starts to look a bit tired and the humour a bit forced. The idea of having one or both their Dads introduce the numbers via the PA doesn’t come off: it’s as if the Dads don’t get it – and that’s it.
Nevertheless, Mel and Sam clearly have their own huge following – in live performance, podcasts, and social media. I saw Centipede in its second week, on a Thursday night, and it played to a full house, all having a great time. It’s as if what you see is what you get, and most folks are happy with that. For me, they can do better.
Michael Brindley
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