Review – Steve Sheehan: Ambient Comedian

Stephen Sheehan is a sublime comedian and a well-known personality in Adelaide comedy circles, but his shows tend to have very short runs. You have to know about them beforehand, because by the time the reviews are in the show has already closed. And it’s this same humility Steve brings to his performance in Ambient Comedian, portraying a character with an unlikely day-job — “I do comedy… in restaurants… background comedy”.

The ellipses are integral to his performance. Sitting at his piano, he literally plays to the audience between pauses as he builds his jokes towards wry, mournful punch lines. When Steve tells the old joke about the barman who asks the horse, “Why the long face?” The horse responds, in Steve’s retelling, that he’s suffering from a chronic pain “Behind my eyes… in my imagination.” And a retelling of a “My wife is so fat” joke, accompanied by a little Chopin, becomes a long, bitter story about a beached whale who wants to experience life in the city.

It’s a sweet, touching, hilarious show, and it’s too late to see it.