Best Of Adelaide Comedy
Adelaide Comedy
Rhino Room
until Sat 15 March


Turning up to the lucky dip grab bag Best of Adelaide Comedy is just after work (as much of the audience did) proved a rather strange experience.

It's a tough gig working a crowed just out of work on a Tuesday at six o'clock with only one drink under their belt to ease them into good time mode.

Jason Chong, Trav Nash, Jason Pestle and Ben Darsow did their damn best.

Chong the MC and Pestle are stars of the moment; Chong on Nova, Pestle as the night's holder of the Legend's Spot.

While Darsow has nice line in self deprecating comedy, Chong's fantastic kung-fu like tales of life as Australasian boy make you wish he was in his own comic version of the series and Pestle's transformation of the fart joke into a tennis like sport is truly original, the night belonged to the guy I think is the next big thing, Trav Nash.

The world of Trav Nash is a surreal, very scary blend of childhood fantasies and nasty adult proclivities that have their genesis in Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory and the Golden Arches of McDonalds.

Nash's candy coated tales with horror filled centres come across as a kind of proto punk-emo like revenge fantasy enthusiastically told with a glass of white in hand. You want to run. You wonder what drugs he's on - not that you'd try 'em but you sure can't pull yourself away from taking it all in.

David O'Brien