Lawrence Mooney may be an actor, a writer, and a radio personality, but what really knocks his socks off is live comedy.
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The host of ABC’s Dirty Laundry Live says it’s the “instant rapport” with a live audience that’s really exciting. For one night only you can experience just what he’s talking about with his “Surely Not!” stand up show at the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre on Friday.
“It’s about life and death, and essentially we’re all going to die and if we don’t laugh at it we’re going to live miserable lives,” said Mooney. “Our time is limited so you may as well enjoy every little moment of it.”
The idea for the dark comedy was sparked by the death of a relative who was quite the adventurer and high achiever.
“Uncle Harry was a confirmed bachelor back in the days before people speculated about other people's sexuality,” he said. “As it turns out, he was probably heterosexual and my mum's theory is that he had four older sisters and so by the time he was an adult he had had a gutful of women, and decided to live a blissfully solitary life.”
It’s not all doom and gloom, Mooney touches on some of the “dumbfoundedness [sic] at crazy events” of the past year - like the spread of Ebola, planes being shot out of the sky and Tony Abbott knighting the Duke of Edinburgh.
He also does a great Malcolm Turnbull impersonation, and proceeds to teach the audience how to speak like him.
“He likes to pronounce all of the letters in all of the words,” he muses
He also makes mention of a potential conspiracy he’s uncovered. Nearly every woman in the Illawarra would have a tube or a tub of Lucas’ Paw Paw Ointment lurking somewhere in their handbag, bathroom, or desk draw – although it’s never been advertised.
“That’s a whispering campaign or telepathic communication,” he said.
He uses this to instruct the female contingent of his audience to end the patriarchy of the now defunct Abbott government.
“The point I make, is you can all telepathically communicate with each other a particular date … when all men are killed, and end the patriarchy,” he said.
If those anecdotes fail to get a smile he can always rely on the best joke he knows:
A guy goes into a bar and orders 10 schooners and 10 scotches. He works his way through them one by one until he finishes the last, and the barman says “whats all that about?”
The guy says, “If you had what I've got, you would do what I just did”.
The barman says, “what have you got?” The guy goes, “two bucks thirty”.
