When her teenage daughter came home one day and complained of hating her life because she was fat Ava told her that ‘at least you could have the decency to be jolly’. The show deals with a wide range of hard hitting issues from around the world that Ava has come across in her travels.
A large component is race and racist attitudes and this created a noticeable eddy in the audience’s comfort. While the topic of racism is hardly new to the stand up stage it is often dealt with in jest with a few observational witticisms or impersonations, but not here.
Ava mentions several personal atrocious experiences and also addresses the politics of the day. Here she makes what might be the bravest move of the night by discarding the well worn cliché of international performers telling Australians how much they love our country.
Instead she has a jovial dig at our airlines, throws the boot into Julia Gillard and has a half hearted stab at the NT intervention. She certainly deserves snaps for localising her content but it’s baffling how she knows how the NT intervention should unfold when even those on Q and A earlier this week were at loggerheads. This is comedy with bite so be prepared to wince rather than giggle.
