Review: Wil Anderson 8/1/12

Wil Anderson walked into the Friend in Hand along with a burst of heat that came with anyone opening the side door. Even in the forty degree heat he wore skinny jeans and a jacket, an impossible decision on a day like today. He surveyed the pub, a famed Sydney comedy venue of which he has performed countless times, nodded at his manager who was ordering at the bar and walked upstairs to the the small theatre on the second floor. The majority of the patrons were dedicated fans who heard about the gig from Twitter, followed him upstairs and took their seats.

Despite the best efforts of the theatre's air conditioning you could still feel the abnormally hot breeze slipping in through the windows. Anderson placed three recording devices around the room, took the mic and offered a final warning: that this was a free performance for a reason, that he could not promise even a single well formed joke, that everything he would say for the next hour would be completely off the top of his head.

Stand-up comedy is a combination of two refined skills, writing jokes and controlling a crowd. Good writing is essential to good comedy, but it is the ability to understand and manipulate the audience that makes stand-up comedy so hypnotic as an art form. It is this skill, learned only through experience and through years of hard work on unfriendly stages, that defines the difference between professional comedians and their amateur counterparts.

Wil Anderson's improvised set at the Friend in Hand was an exercise in understanding an audience. It has become a ritual of his to perform these free sets at the Hand in January as part of the way he writes his touring shows, a period that he referred to in the show as 'agonising'. He uses these sessions to return to the simplicity of stand-up and away from the abstraction of writing.

Viewing this raw comedic effort was a strange experience, particularly as someone accustomed to his polished stage shows with their well formed anecdotes and coherent strands of thought. You could see the essence of  Anderson's comedic stylings, particularly the effortless blending of personal stories with broader themes and ideas. There was even stretches of deep contemplation in between punchlines, which has become an increasingly prominent part of his style over the years. However, there was a very different feel to this set, indeed being a free gig at a venue he clearly loves with a crowd filled with people who were clearly devoted fans he was in some ways more relaxed than his normal onstage persona. You could see the concentration on his face with every joke he made as he felt the room's response to try and understand what would work.

The material was tangental and clearly unpolished; he often had to ask the audience where he had left off stories, and indeed this became almost a joke in itself. The set was often formless, and properly structured jokes were rare, as is to be expected at an improvised and experimental gig. There was, however, a lot of very promising material throughout, particularly in regards to his experience of going back to his home town in country Victoria where his family still lives. Another early quip about Anh Do, who had opened for Anderson years earlier, was by far the most popular joke of the night and one that will easily find a place in his upcoming show.

But by far the most interesting section of the set was a joke concerning the former host of another ABC show who has been convicted of owning child pornography. The joke itself was funny, I had heard a variation in his show from last year, but what was compelling that Anderson immediately retracted the joke, saying "I knew the guy. I liked the guy.  It's hard to learn that people you like don't always do good things." It was a powerful moment reflective of Anderson's maturity as a comic, one that is unlikely to make it into his festival routine in any way.

After an hour or so, Anderson, who was by this stage sweating through his clothes, stepped offstage and thanked everyone for coming. It was eight o'clock and still over thirty degrees outside, the audience was pretty keen to leave the humid theatre. After everyone left you could see Anderson talking to his manager at the top of the stairs and collecting up the recording devices he had left, he had barely walked offstage but he was already clearly analysing the set for material to keep. He has two more months to go.

The Art of Sext

Perhaps the most controversial scene in the awfully titled movie “Crazy, Stupid, Love” concerns the plight of seventeen year old Jessica. In love with an older man, whose family she babysits for, she cannot get him to view her as anything more than a virginal employee. To counter this, she decides to take nude photos of herself and give them to him. Comedy, predictably, intervenes and instead of arriving to the object of her affections they end up in the hands of her parents. A farcical chase scene ensues.

The scene touches upon what has become one of the great parental anxieties of our time, sexting. It is the newest collision of technology and hormones that is the awkward topic of conversation in households around Australia. Seizing the initiative of Kim Kardashian, Vanessa Hudgens and their ilk, teenagers are sending nude photos of themselves with an enthusiasm that baffles middle Australia. And as we do with all movements that baffle us, we panic.

Anti-sexting postcards have been distributed to students in Ballarat. In New South Wales police are calling for bans on mobile phone use in school hours. In Mackay a teenager was spared prosecution from child pornography offenses. Post-Henson Australia has moved the search for prospective pedophiles from the
beaches and the art galleries to the inboxes of their children’s mobiles.

The most outrageous response, in my opinion, is this advertisement from the Federal Government. It presents the archetypal nightmare scenario for the young sexter. A girl (male victims are noticeably absent in such awareness campaigns) arrives in class fresh from an episode in self-portraiture to find to her horror that the aforementioned photos have spread throughout the class before the teacher has even reached ‘H’ in the roll call. What feminist worth their salt is not offended by this ad? There absolutely no attention paid to the original recipient of the message, or any questioning of the actions of her peers. Instead the blame is laid with outright misogyny at the feet of Meghan herself. The message of the ad is simple; “Don’t Sext, You Will Be Judged”.

A more comprehensive response to sexting has to lie in understanding both what drives teenagers to sext and the responsibilities of someone who receive a sext are. Presenting sexters as irresponsible sluts does not achieve this. Presenting recipients of sexts as exploitative douchebags does not achieve this.

What would achieve this is better sex education in our schools. Our curriculum is still based on the biological need-to-knows: the specifics of anatomy, the process of reproduction, the prevention of STI’s, the value and application of various contraceptives. But sexuality has changed dramatically since this early seventies approach. Social networking has changed the way teenagers interact immeasurably. Teenage boys can watch extraordinary amounts of depraved pornography in the comfort of their bedrooms. And anyone, anywhere, can broadcast pictures and videos of their genitalia to anyone, anywhere.

A new sex education curriculum would better prepare children for such a hyper- sexualized world.

I will not reveal the fate of the nude self-portraits in “Crazy, Stupid Love” suffice to say that their eventual transferral to a far more appropriate recipient turns into an empowering and oddly moving gesture on the part of Jessica. Ultimately, we need to accept young people’s sexuality, not repress it.