Review – Chopper’s Big Fucken Late Show: Garden the Fuck Up!
A nearly full house made this double headliner, emceed by the legend himself, Chopper, for a night of raucous, definitely-can’t-repeat-that-one humour. And the Vagabond is an excellent venue for stand up, though ladies, please – watch your stilettos in the floor boards. Nobody likes the person in front of them chucking half their Bundy mixer down my leg.
Chopper shone as usual with his unique brand of beer swilling, no holds barred, fuck yeah humour. Political and loaded as ever, the response was 90% laughter, 10% hesitant ‘oooohs’. Meanwhile Lawrence Mooney got the hecklers in the crowd going, and left everyone present with more details about the shaving of his nether regions than they were prepared to know. Dirty sex jokes are almost always hilarious, but Mooney’s particularly developed vocabulary on the subject proved too much for some.
Randy (Heath McIvor) is essentially a slightly creepy, foul mouthed, hyperactive puppet with very strong political views. And it works. The visual comedic value of McIvors’ puppeteering is complemented by his surprisingly witty political narrative. Although, midway through Randy’s set, two individuals behind me started to complain about the language and content, and left. So here’s a public service announcement: if the title of the show has “fuck” in it twice, and starts at 11PM, don’t expect it to be pre-schooler appropriate!
The Late Show ends well after midnight, but this shouldn’t put anyone off – the Garden is still alive and kicking at that hour, after all. And it’s a different act every night, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the show had a few repeat customers. Chopper has some very loyal fans in Adelaide and his Big Fucken Late Show won’t fail to have the venue rocking with laughter.
