Writer/presenter : Wil Anderson; The Comedy Store, Sydney, 2 September & 16 September, 2023.
Reviewed : 2 September, 2023
Talking for an hour with a script is easy. Being funny for an hour with a script can be problematic depending on the speaker – and the audience. Being funny for an hour without a script is even more problematic. Not if you’re Wil Anderson!
Anderson’s scripted touring shows are always tight! He writes well. He’s smart, intelligent. He knows his audiences and plays them skilfully.
Without a script, he’s just as skilful. His improvised shows run for an hour and he keeps them moving … completely based on people from the audience. He comes on stage with nothing more than a bottle of water, his smile … and the people who have come to see him!
Don’t get me wrong. He doesn’t do anything more than ask questions, but he’s perceptive, observant, sharp. In the first few minutes he’s on stage he surreptitiously scans the audience looking for – perhaps a smile, perhaps someone who’s particularly tall, or good looking, or wearing something unusual.
It won’t be someone who’s avoiding his eye or looking away – because he’s not going to talk to anyone he perceives might feel threatened. He’s not there to make fun of anyone or make anyone feel uncomfortable. He explains that clearly … after he’s ‘chosen’ a few people who catch his eye.
Once he begins talking to those people, he uses the tiny bits of information he elicits from them to ‘make’ the show. It can be how they spell their name, or their occupation, or connections between them, or stories of his own that link to theirs. Sometimes their stories or occupations link – as they did on 2nd September – and when that happens things can become hilarious!
Wil Anderson is a clever man! His popularity here and overseas is testament to his intelligence, his quick wit, his ability to relate across age barriers – his trustworthiness. And his honesty.
Obviously I’m a fan – even though I am an ABC watcher and well and truly over 60! But I wasn’t the only age-challenged person in the audience! In fact, the broad range of ‘followers’ in his audiences is wide and varied. Whether it’s his Wil… touring shows, Comedy Festival “impros”, Gruen, Question Everything, his podcasts such as Wilosophy or raising money for Canteen in Celebrity TheatreSports team… Wil Anderson has that ‘something’ that appeals across generations.