Review: Dave Bloustien in The Social Contract

Dave Bloustien in court garb. Image: Michael Kery.

Dave Bloustien in The Social Contract

Starring: Dave Bloustien
Appearing at: The Portland Hotel, Melbourne, for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival

If Wolverine were Mr Hyde, Sydney comedy writer (Good News Week) and stand-up Dave Bloustien would be his Dr Jekyll alter ego. Sideburned, dapper and diminutive enough to be cuddly, Bloustien exudes a hyperactive warmth that’s irresistible. Being seated before him in an almost impossibly tight room at the Portland Hotel is about one degree away from being engrossed in a long conversation with your most delightfully entertaining friend.

The conversation topic? Humiliation at the hands of a facile entrepreneur and the disinterested rabble of Cronulla high school graduates, and redemption at the Small Claims Court. Bloustien earned a Moosehead grant for The Social Contract, wherein he recounts the tale of a doomed performance on a high school formal boat cruise and the crusade to prove in court that he was actually funny and, y’know, deserved to be paid for his services from an unscrupulous entertainment booker.

Bloustien shoots through the events, including multiple diversions into observational comedy, with such an infectious energy that he’s impossible to ignore. Hell, half the time I was convinced I was hearing this tall tale over an afternoon beer and many times had to stop myself from nodding incredulously and asking leading questions from the floor.

An intriguing element of the show found Bloustien’s comedic range so wide that a constant ripple of chuckling hummed through the audience as different members found certain angles amusing: satire, sarcasm, self-deprecation, shaggy dog storytelling, knowing wit, his occasional weakness for puns and surrealism, and his erudite wordplay (it’s been a long time since I’ve heard someone drop ‘mollify’ into casual conversation).

Stop gushing now, Andy. As much as I could listen to Bloustien ramble on forever, I was a little miffed that the ripe comedic fields of law and the concept of social responsibility were skimmed over in favour of an exposition on that Gig From Hell. The promise of a conceptual show about those absurdities, told in such a charming way, was very welcome and wasn’t entirely delivered.

That said, an hour spent bombarded by Bloustien’s ponderings is pleasurably exhausting. The spine of the show is strong and the delivery is enormously appealing. Don’t expect stitches but do expect satisfaction.

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