I’m glad it’s normal to feel uncomfortable while sitting in a dim lit room with an awkward, limby bloke in a skin coloured suit trying to hold conversation, because that’s exactly what I felt at Tom Walker’s show ‘Honk Honk Honk Honk Honk’ at Sydney Comedy Festival on Sunday.
The sometime spontaneous, surprisingly well prepared funny man Tom Walker had the crowd in the palm of his hand through the entirety of his show. Starting with crafty computer games to engage the audience, Walker seamlessly plunged in to his very own world of weird and whacky experimental humour, from impromptu musical moments to screamingly funny impersonations… continuously reminding the show that “this is what it really is” and questioning them as to “why they would even pay for this”. The self degradation was part and parcel of Walker’s act, as he used this as an out for some of the less favourable bit’s.
The mentioned “experimental humour” involved such things as creepily lurking around the room while a tone prompted the audience to open and close their eyes and more bizarrely stuffing a baby doll in his mouth to represent a “childbirth gone wrong”. Yeah… with that said, the show isn’t for the faint hearted.
In contrast to all the nonsensical humour, the message Walker weaved throughout his show was important and resonated with me. “Why does this all matter”, was the general feeling, and to be honest, I respect the way he addressed this.
It was as if at some point during the writing process he just said “fuck it, why does it all matter. We’re all going to die anyway” and ran with that thought from then on, all the while creating something so deliberately true within himself, and as a result, creating something new and refreshing for the audience to savour. 5/5 for creativity, 4/5 for overall performance.
