COMEDY

Adam Peter Scott: Straight To Video

Pho Barn @ Noodle Palace

Review: Jasmine Seabrook-Benson

The lights dim, and within moments of his entrance from the side of stage, Adam Peter Scott is amusing us with his eloquent, dry, and relaxed observational wit.

Straight To Video, a stand-up show about movies, is also about the self-proclaimed nerd performing it. He admits that the concept wasn’t always concrete, but he had no trouble identifying what he didn’t want this show to be: a straight white man, with a middle class suburban upbringing, reflecting on things that don’t affect him.

With trademark self-deprecating humour, Scott explains that his privileged place in society leaves him with very little to reflect meaningfully upon. He talks us through his soul-searching struggle to identify a topic that he could discuss genuinely. A Netflix binge holds the key. Growing up as what he terms an ‘inside kid’, the best topic for him is movies.

It’s immediately clear that Scott has a love/hate relationship with this medium of entertainment. Identifying the logical inconsistencies in genres such as romantic comedy, crime and spy movies, he illustrates his point with impassioned rants that show us where real-life and movies disconnect.

Throwing some political comedy into the mix, Scott digresses. He provides entertaining personal anecdotes along with his analysis of Australian society. Going on to discuss Reclaim Australia, he makes a salient point: people can’t be converted to any religion if they don’t want to be. His conclusion that “Muslims aren’t vampires” set a wave of appreciative laughter rippling through the room. And, bringing us back to the topic of movies, he thrilled us with the absurdly amusing concept of a Reclaim Australia-themed Twilight.

Thursday night’s performance provided us with a small glimpse of Scott’s ability to negotiate challenging circumstances. His admirably gracious negotiation of difficulties created by two audience members who didn’t appear to be there to listen to (nor watch) the show was impressive. Pleasingly, his genuine desire for everyone to have a good time held things together.

As the show neared its conclusion, Scott revealed to us a concept for a movie that he could have a love/love relationship with. Evidently, he was quite a fan of Captain Planet as a child, and his pitch for a gritty reboot is so intriguing that you’ll leave the venue desperately wishing that it had been given the green light.

Adam Peter Scott: Straight To Video runs 17-20 February at the Pho Barn at Noodle Palace, Francis Street, Perth. Tickets available here.