Akmal Saleh is one of Australia’s most spontaneous comedians constructing many of his performances off audience narratives, often arriving on stage without a strategy or detailed script to tackle the ensuing 60 minutes. So having to resort to last minute preparations for his self-titled set at this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival didn’t faze the Egyptian-Australian. Participation in Network Ten’s adventure-reality show I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! was the reason for the hastened lead-up and comparing the jungle retreat to living in prison and stories of an unanticipated harmony with Shane Warne formed the backbone of his performance.
Throughout the show he admitted that he had a “limited range of character voices” but it didn’t take him long to put them to good use with an impersonation of a country bumpkin during a recent visit to Proserpine. As a self-prescribed “weirdo magnet”, his recent visit to the North Queensland town attracted a lot of attention from residents who almost thought they knew him. “I think I know you” a stranger from across the street bellowed as Akmal sauntered through the city centre. Akmal was kind enough to participate, but the fairly inconspicuous across-the-street exchange soon spiralled into a face-to-face arrangement. “Yeah I know you, you’re what’s his name” – enough said. Akmal’s status as an ‘almost famous’ celebrity was confirmed.
There are always late-comers to a show, but they’re not properly identified as late-comers until the comedian recognises their belated arrival. Some more script-dependent comedians will be too embroiled in their set to react, but a comic as off-the-cuff as Akmal doesn’t let unorganised spectators off the hook. He diagnosed a lack of applause from the front row as an absence of personnel and when the crowd-members finally arrived they instantly became the topic of conversation. The beard on a fellow seated front and centre triggered Akmal’s jocular view on the ISIS saga – drones are concentrating the sky and they “can’t tell the difference between ISIS and hipsters” but if they kill them both it’s a “win-win” – the gentleman’s night just became a lot more nervy.
Akmal knew his preparation for this tour hadn’t been as fruitful as past years, which led to momentary lapses in concentration and short instances of silence throughout the set. Nonetheless, the crowd’s awareness of this shortfall only added to the humour. It was as if there were periods where the audience was laughing in empathy and sometimes spectators were called in to give a helping hand. When Akmal reached a dead-end, a gentleman suggested that he revisit a story about his very own Noah’s ark, which he had touched on three or four times already but hadn’t explored. Unfortunately by that stage it was lost on him, but that moment of forgetfulness drew rapturous applause from the crowd in a reaction of pity rather than genuine humour. It was a show to remember for many of the reasons that you’d want to forget, nonetheless the crowd responded in the best way possible.
BY TOM PARKER
