COMEDY

Presented by Dave Callan

The Gold Digger 

Review by Jen Perry

We love watching people dance. Even more than that, we love watching YouTube videos of people dancing to humorous Benny Hill overlays. Melbourne-based Irish comedian Dave Callan understands this, and has brought A Little Less Conversation 2: A Little More Less Conversation back to The Gold Digger at the State Theatre Centre Complex.

Known for his years on Rove Live, as Triple J host and Spicks and Specks guest, Dave’s shaggy-haired face will be a familiar sight to most audiences. Other sights will be less familiar.

There were shimmies (a personal highlight), Shakira-esque belly dancing and of course, twerking. Dave and his supremely talented backup dancers jittered, twittered and sashayed backwards through the alphabet, giving us the most notable dance moves of the last century. These dances and occasional onscreen videos were interspersed with stand-up. Dave spent his teenage years in Perth and made the obligatory ‘Northbridge-is-awful-at-night’ joke to a delightful riff on the Spud Shed.

Everyone around me was uproarious with laughter, seemingly never tiring of Callan’s fully committed yet slightly unenthused style of dancing. A man who successfully impersonates the infamous “Jingle Bell Rock” scene in Mean Girls deserves some credit.

I found myself, however, wanting more from the performance. It was pleasant, and at times I was laughing along with everyone else; but even the topical references were dated.

Undoubtedly the most inspired moment of the show included two audience members, one of whom was Dave’s own brother. Dave instructed the two men in the ways of twerking. This culminated in a heat-of-the-moment inverted vertical twerk that proved, more than anything else, I never want to be chosen for audience participation at a Fringe show.

If you went to see A Little Less Conversation last Fringe season, you’ll know what to expect this time around. I hope that with next year’s iteration, Dave gives us a little less dancing and a little more conversation.

You can see A Little Less Conversation 2 until February 13th at The Gold Digger.