Chopper – Harden the F*uck Up Australia (FringeTIX)
Chopper @ Royalty Theatre
10:30pm, Tue 20 Mar 2007
First up – yes, FringeTIX did include the rather descriptive “F*uck” in the title of this show. Some might say that the asterisk is now essentially pointless, but I think it looks pretty.
Chopper, of course, is a character on late-night comedy show The Ronnie Johns Half Hour – a piss-take of real-life criminal (and author) Chopper Read. And, to be quite honest, I didn’t think many people would be showing up at Chopper’s Fringe shows; I figured the late-night slot kept the show – and Chopper – out of the public’s awareness.
So I was quite fucking staggered to discover that the initial run of shows at The Bosco had rapidly sold out, and that spill-over shows at The Royalty (and, later, Thebby) had been scheduled. A ticket was snaffled, and I found myself approaching the biggest congregation of bogans I’ve seen since my only trip to the Australian Grand Prix many, many years ago. That group conjured more fear in me than my last 2am trek down a drunken Hindley Street.
Anyhoo, we’re in and seated a mere 45 minutes late, and the show begins; opening with the original Harden The Fuck Up video snippet, Chopper plows through a blend of live recreations of previous TV spots (the Heimlich Maneuver springs to minds, along with the closing Weather Report) and a little somewhat-new material. Mini-Chopper makes an appearance, performing a little psych-analysis on a very reluctant audience member, and there’s a fuckin’ lot of fuckin’ swearing.
I like the character of Chopper; his prolific profanity makes me giggle in admiration, and the mannerisms of the character are lovely (and even the real Chopper doesn’t mind Chopper). Since I’d not seen all the Chopper snippets from telly, a lot of this was new to me, but I dunno whether you’d be happy having seen most of the material re-created in a live setting. Then again, the Little Britain crowds certainly didn’t mind, did they?
In short: I laughed a lot. A very enjoyable show…
…except for the fucking mongoloid scraped-knuckle fucktard sitting next to me who thought it was a brilliant idea to discuss every fucking line of dialog with his female accompaniment (and no, that is not an exaggeration – they literally talked through the entire show). Seriously, after five minutes I turned to them to politely ask them to shut the fuck up, but noticed that he appeared to be fully capable of stabbing me in the head on the flimsiest of pretences – I chickened out. I later justified this (lack of) action to myself somewhat by figuring that I’m never likely to attend a performance with them again.
…and breathe. Here’s one last great bit of Chopper: Chopper’s Fuck Counter.