Review – My Piano And Me

Sarah Gaul wants people to think of the humble Lego man when they’re feeling small and insignificant. It might only be one and a half inches tall, but it shouldn’t be underestimated. Left at the correct angle, in a dark hallway, it can cripple a fully-grown human — perhaps for life. Sarah herself is a small player at this year’s Fringe — a relative unknown, and fairly new to comedy — but her knack for these sort of quirky observations reveal her to have a mighty potential.

My Piano and Me starts out modestly enough, with songs about Facebook stalking, zealous vegan hipsters, and the My Family avatars people stick on their rear windshields. The material is familiar, and allows you to get comfortable with Sarah’s sense of humour before she moves on to more daring satire. (Of which there is plenty: in one song, for example, she tackles the experiences of a Christian friend and his attempt to deal with his “sinful” attraction to men.)

Sarah has plenty of bite in her delivery, too: the face she makes when she recalls having her Centrelink payments cancelled is made utterly hilarious by her dead-pan, and her refrain about repeatedly trying to drown a creep in the river — “And I shoved you back in!” — is sold with upbeat gusto.

Sarah performs admirably in the Adelaide heat — she wears a sweatband on her wrist so she doesn’t leave salt deposits on her keys — and tackles fun, challenging and dark material with her musical satire. She’ll be back, for sure, but check her out now so you can say you saw her before she was big.