Peter Berner
Rhino Room
Season closed


Most people currently know Peter Berner as the formidable host of ABC TV's 'The Einstein Factor'. This, as he makes clear right from the get go, couldn't be further from reality as his true -and vitriolic - views don't really fit within the popular lighthearted quiz show's format.

On stage, Berner makes it clear, with good reason, that he's in no hurry to start the show and from thereon his delivery is contemplative, well measured and intelligently strung together resulting in a seamless, complete well rounded story that incorporates his cynicism on everything from fatherhood to funerals. Here's a man who, on one hand as a father is a moral compass and then, as a minor TV personality, likes to foresee newspaper reports on his death in a plane crash as being all about him with the insignificant rest of us being seen as "nuthies".

Slicing up his compassion pie, it's clear that Berner has little sympathy for the plight of farmers and doesn't have much time for senior citizens, whales, Schapelle Corby, the Beaconsfield miners, fat kids and PM Rudd's policies (or lack of); as well as believing that most problems can be solved with half a house brick and prescription medicines should come with actor proof bottle tops. Here's the man who we thought we'd come to know on our television, dryly telling us things as he really sees them. And he's hellishly funny with it.

Steve Jones