Review: Ewen Gilmour’s Midlife Circus – San Francisco Bathhouse Wellington
Review: Ewen Gilmour’s Midlife Circus – San Francisco Bathhouse Wellington
By Dave’s Flatmate
I don’t know about you but I seriously can’t believe David has become one of those people who seems to be the ‘go to guy’ as the resident New Zealand agony aunt of politics.
I hardly ever see him at the apartment he’s that busy. He’s always out attending things like art gallery openings, MCing events, chairing debates, polling, talking on radio, making shit up and laying his hands on the Young Nats curing them of their belief that John Key is the second coming – evidently that’s Judith Collins.
And now the latest is that it seems all the serious journalists. art critics and reviewers have been marginalised to writing for the wasteland of the NZ Listener’s “Life in NZ’ as David steps up and now becomes NZ’s resident comedy critic.
This truly is the land of opportunity. So, anyway, he comes home and says something like…”Hey C#@t we are going to see Ewen Gilmour’s show tomorrow night, and because you were born and schooled in Huntly, you’ll get the humour and can write the review.”
And that’s the rub, he says it in such a way that at face value it sounds reasonable and logical, yet really it’s like the Emperor has no clothes and no one is going to pull him up about the way he makes vacuous authoritive statements.
Now. For all of the two readers of this ‘My Space page’, the show was held at the San Francisco Bathhouse in Cuba Street Wellington. It’s exactly like the comedy club in Auckland, but a little bit shit.
We grab our seats. Here’s the funny part. I had to pull David from sitting up the front. He said why?
Now, I know, everyone else in New Zealand is in on the joke, but it pained me not to break his little heart and I held back from saying to him…”Mate, a little short four eyed, bald, David Bain look-alike winner will be the first person to be picked on by a comedian in the front row.”
Instead, like the rest of us who cover for Dave, I said….”Mate, if we sit back, we can check out the talent!” I really should be a Spin Doctor. He bought it, and it saved me the embarrassment of being picked on by Ewen as the red-headed Huntly kid with the mini-me best friend.
Ok, so we settle in and its Bogan central – no one from the beltway is to be seen.
“Dave, want a beer?” I’m thinking as in Rome do as the Patricians do and let’s just fit in. “Nah, grab me a Diet coke”. I gave up providing Dave with any spatial awareness and head to the bar.
Ewen then comes on stage, and it’s the first time I’ve seen him do comedy. And to be honest, I normally think NZ comedians are crap. But he is a genuinely funny guy. Sure there was plenty of toilet humour, and a few groans, I can’t believe he went there. However there was plenty of downright burst out loud laughing as he pokes at his mid-life crisis.
As for the show, he show covered the whole range of taboos not normally heard in polite Wellington Society. As the blurb says: Tattoos; motorbikes; beer; fast cars; overseas trips; beer; cholesterol; hearing aids; beer; glasses; prostate checks.
So, you can’t complain that you didn’t know what you were up for.
In particular Ewan’s take on his extra curricula activities in hotel rooms was side splitting funny. His dog with ‘that weeping gland’ problem was right down there with cringe, but delivered in the funniest way that even Chris Finlayson would have to admire the comedic artist at work.
Of course he picked on the two guys in the front row. Predictably an IT nerd and some something or othererer (sic) –I sat there smugly thinking how the innocent next to me had no idea what I had saved him from.
Then there were a couple of awkward…do I laugh or not moments. One was about his wife’s death a few years ago. The other was about blow-jobs. I won’t go into repeating what he said, but the sad moment was having to explain to my 45 year old flatmate what a blowjob is. No Kiwiblog Ladies, I’m not an idiot. I didn’t tell him what it really is, I told him it was what hairdressers do to dry ladies hair in the Hair salon.
Could you imagine David with that piece of information at his little fingertips. It would be like Winston finding out Russell Norman is an Immigrant.
The show lasted about an hour, and as I said, it was everything one would expect of from Ewen
And as Kiwiblog’s resident comedic reviewer. I give the show 2 Michelin Stars. Well worth the detour and a fun way to avoid a night at home.
Ewen’s in Wellington tiil the 11th of May at San Francisco Bathhouse
DPF: The show was hilarious. Laughing almost non-stop. I will never ever stay in a hotel room again, that Ewen Gilmour has been near! Note also that my flatmate lies and has invented most of the above conversations!
One of the Kiwiblog readers who won free tickets e-mailed me this morning and said:
Thanks heaps for the tickets would have liked to thank you in person but I had to get my wife home, she had surgery a few weeks ago and laughed so hard she was a bit sore!
Even without surgery, you could hurt yourself laughing.