Wildly funny and completely outré, Garry Starr’s Classic Penguins had the audience in fits of laughter all the way through his 70-minute foray into the world of books. Starr’s ‘mission’ is to save literature by performing every Penguin Classic novel ever written. Of course to do this within the time frame means stripping everything down to the bare essentials – and that’s the performer, not the literary works. For most of this show, Starr wears nothing but an Elizabethan-style ruff. At the outset, he wears flippers (didn’t penguins write these classics?) and a top hat and tailcoat. But not for long. It makes for a hilariously different evening.
There is a full-frontal nudity warning on the strutnfret.com website, along with another caution that ‘audience participation will be invited at the discretion of the performer’, but those ‘invited’ onto the stage didn’t seem at all perturbed. Shocked, perhaps, but not unhappy.
Forget those shows you might have seen that undertake to precis all the Harry Potter books or Shakespeare’s works in 100 minutes; this is different. Garry Starr cycles through the classics in his own inimitable, chaotic way: Around the World in 80 Days (much naked pirouetting); Frankenstein (a supine Starr, hoping to be made erect by a ‘volunteer’); Breakfast at Tiffany’s leading to a rendition of ‘Moon River’ (do you need to be told?) and so many more. These classic novels will never be the same again.
Garry Starr is the flippered alter ego of Damien Warren-Smith, whose clowning and acrobatic skills get a marvellous workout in this show. Wuthering Heights? Well, of course you’d need to enact that on a trapeze, bare bum over the audience. Warren-Smith’s energy as a performer is high-voltage and the tempo of the show just kept increasing.
Classic Penguins has already had smash-hit seasons at Adelaide Fringe, Perth Fringe World as well as winning at last year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival and is heading for seasons in London and the Edinburgh Fringe. Sydneysiders can catch it at the Grand Electric until 12 October.
How will Starr’s lunatic antics save literature? Honestly, you won’t care. And to quote the master himself at the end of his show, ‘Support weird people!’
The Grand Electric, Cleveland Street, Surry Hills
Tickets: $49-$59
https://strutnfret.com/shows/garry-starr-classic-penguins/
