Jeff Green: Leaping off the Bell Curve

Jeff Green is well known to Perth audiences from a couple of stints touring with the Melbourne International Comedy Roadshow. Fans were out in force for his one night stand as part of the second hugely successful Perth international Comedy Festival. Nowadays an Australian resident, the differences between British and Australian cultures and lifestyles gave him plenty of material to embroider upon.

Later in the set he remarked upon the importance of a strong beginning when a stand up takes the stage. He certainly delivered in spades with comments about Perth being lovely when it was finished “All those holes everywhere”. But it was his comment about Gina Rhinehart that brought the house down. “23 billion and she still looks like an Ukranian hooker”.

A menu of British comedians who had married Australian girls segued neatly into a brilliant rapid-fire diatribe of at least thirty of the most common nagging comments from wife to husband. This “Don’t” sequence had the audience shrieking with laughter.

Moving swiftly through Uni days, courtship, early marriage and onto offspring, Green kept the punch lines coming thick and fast. He has a deceptively careless throw-away manner. It makes his delivery appear to be lighthearted banter when in fact it is carefully crafted and delivered with impeccable timing.

A technical difficulty with a microphone did not appear to phase him. He kept the patter going as he fiddled with the offending apparatus and then moved swiftly onto a hand held mike.

Back to his two sons; “Lucifer and Voldemort”. A clever twist was the concern that they had been introduced to a group of creepy old men, the Wiggles, “truly the Qantas stewardesses of the entertainment world!”.

There were some witty observations on subjects as varied as new relationships “Trying to be nicer than you actually are”, leading inevitably to “You’ve changed!” six months later. Also well-received was the post-childrens’ bed- time drinking habit leading to the putting out of “the yellow-lidded wheelie bin of shame.”

Not only is his delivery sharp as a tack but it is delightfully underlined with his skilful, underplayed, physical comedy.

Harking back to his early days, Green shared with the audience the trials and tribulations of having to share a dressing room for a three week sojourn at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival, with three twenty-five year old Danish female burlesque artistes, “the best three weeks of my life!”.

It was a neat closer and the capacity audience streamed out of the Astor repeating the punch-lines, chortling and more than satisfied.