COMEDY
The Gelo Company
January 30 2016
Review by Jen Perry
Self-proclaimed Famous Sharron is “very, very famous for nothing at all.” Yet her show, consisting of a 50-minute diatribe involving various audience participations and PowerPoint slides, is an attempt to prove otherwise. With a selfie stick in hand and sequined gown in tow, Famous Sharron is famous because she wants to be.
The stage is flanked by two cardboard cut-outs of “Shaz’s” face, alternately winking and smiling. As she makes her entrance, the opening song is played just slightly too long and a voiceover proclaims the “self-correlated Princess of Perth” to the stage. The people around me smile and clap as she makes jokes about Troy Buswell, living in Balga, and intimidating Kim Kardashian. She has appeal, but the show itself lacks continuity or a thread of focus to exploit this.
The biggest laugh of the show came not from Sharron but a ‘picked-on’ audience member, who was tasked with reading out an ordinary text message in a sexy, sexy voice. Another highlight involved a Sia-like rendition of ‘Chandelier’ with a mini Shaz performing back flips and tumbles around stage as Sharron followed suit, in an albeit less coordinated fashion. While these moments were exciting, if not entirely ground-breaking, the rest of the performance rang at once too rehearsed and too unpolished.
Shaz has the spark and joie de vivre of Dame Edna, but lacks Barry Humphries’ comedic punch. I was left logically dissecting her one-liners, understanding that intellectually they had possibility for a laugh, but still lacked that ‘special touch’. To be fair, this might have been due to the Perth-centric nature of her show. As a Perth transplant, I perhaps wasn’t the audience Sharon was performing to when she asked if anyone was from a less desirable suburb, or other jokes calculated to appeal to specifically local knowledge and humour.
Regardless, a more coherent story to her performance would have elevated the baseline joy she so clearly brings to the people around her. Sharron has some way to go yet to achieve the “Dame Edna Kardashian” fame she’s going for.
You can see Famous Sharron: Fame Factor at Teatro 2 in the Pleasure Garden until Monday, February 1st. Tickets available here.