#noregrets

Jolt Comedy presents The (so that you do not mix her up with all of the others) Jo O’Brien and Little T at the Port Adelaide Naval Association; a very accessible Fringe venue with easy parking and a well-lit, cabaret style venue that is well set up for comedy and smaller performances. Billed as ‘hilarious true life stories’, these two women regale the audience with a vast and diverse range of their funny, and sometimes painful life experiences. Both performers ooze energy and enthusiasm, and the contact with their audience is strong. Whilst it focuses on female experiences, on opening night male audience members were obviously enthusiastically engaged. Their style is not the usual ‘stand and deliver’ stand up style and cleverly created video and music is used to capture a different mood and expectations for this performance.

The show opens with a Disney style ‘Once Upon a Time’ story book that morphs into cleverly selected people, groups and situations setting up the range of things that the duo may explore. When you look closely, you realise that in each shot, the faces of our two performers have been cleverly inserted. My favourite was the Bee Gees, though Harry Potter and Charley’s Angels were close runner ups.

This is not a performance for the ‘faint hearted’. It covers a broad canvas including dating, fecal transplants, menopause, ‘women’s business’ and grooming, divorce, and the heart rending issue of who gets the Tupperware as part of the divorce settlement. Audience members should note that language is sometimes explicit and is what my grandmother described as ‘blue’. Very ‘tongue in cheek’, the performers also offer Jolt Comedy memorabilia for sale, bringing to mind the shows of Las Vegas where souvenirs are critical to saving performance memories.

These two women are obviously passionate to help provide opportunities for more female comediennes in a very ‘male top heavy’ market to tell their quirky stories. My only ‘even better if’ comment would be that I would have liked, in this laugh packed and pacey performance, to see more referring back to their ‘no regrets’ theme, and I would love to have seen their innovative opening similarly reflected in the closing.

Having said that, it is terrific to see confident and entertaining local female comediennes make their mark and tell their stories with wit and panache. Take a trip to the Port, it is worth the journey.

Jude Hines

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