Lee Tran Lam - Chris Addison: Civilization
27 April 2005
A night spent chronicling the development of civilization may sound as exciting as dusting an ancient set of leather-bound encyclopedias, but in the hands of the lanky, energetic, intelligent and extremely funny English comic Chris Addison, Civilization becomes one of the most entertaining shows you’ll see in, oh, about 5000 years. OK, I may exaggerate –- there have been many gigs worth going to since the beginning of Mesopotamian settlement – but the comedian has nevertheless managed to mine every idiosyncrasy since 3500 BC into highly enjoyable material.
Before launching into Civilization though, Addison introduces himself with some very wry observations he’s made about Australia since landing here for Melbourne Comedy Festival. For instance, everywhere else in the world, Easter is a celebration of many things – Easter eggs, religion, rebirth, etc – but in Australia, the entire holiday season is about trumpeting road death, with league tables of carnage every time the news comes on. And, why build a motorway to Alice Springs? he asks. “It simply encourages serial killers.” Addison also questions the effectiveness of our road sign warnings (“Speed Kills” etc), which become so repetitive they merely blur into the landscape and are not taken seriously at all. How more attentive your drivers would be if you had signs that simply say, “Déjà vu kills”?
After this locally-spiced preamble, Addison argues that civilization is about to collapse and therefore we have to look at our old, hoary model to discern how we can make a new better one once everything collapses. So he takes us back to the roots of civilization, and spiritedly runs through historic developments with such vivacity and humour, it’s hard not to be impressed. His marathon-speed wit never flags, is surprisingly educational in a palatable way, and he still has enough firepower to indulge in off-the-cuff humour with the crowd (he turns a mere mention of Green Left Weekly into amusing riffs on compost techniques and kids’ eating habits). From the emergence of the earliest deities (he questions whether Buddha was really vegetarian – “have you seen the size of Buddha, I’m not convinced”), to the merits of bartering over money (“it’s very hard to forge a pig”), and the idiocy of predictive text, Addison delivers a show that is structured enough so you can impress your dinner party friends with your crash course on the history of human society, but still loose enough to fit in some vaguely linked jokes about his honeymoon and god-daughters. Addison’s well-structured show is all the more remarkable given that many comics deliver shapeless sets which are essentially nothing more than a jukebox of random skits (Ross Noble is a posterboy for this, even though he is highly funny while doing so). And his smart brand of humour is a welcome relief given that some comedy is a mere celebration of the stupid – you do get a sense that he has an endearingly daggy propensity for watching long documentaries on archaeological digs. Maybe that’s what inspired his very cheeky suggestion on how we should bury ourselves to prank future archaeologists.
So, should civilization really come to an end, Addison would be a great start in pointing us in the right direction. Should it end up in decline, at least the whole experience will be one great laugh.
More Information
Chris Addison: Civilization
Until 1 May
The Studio, Sydney Opera House
Tickets and more information: see the website
Website: http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/sections/whats_on/the_studio/
