[2014039] Joel Creasey in Rock God
Joel Creasey @ Rhino Room – Howling Owl
7:00pm, Fri 21 Feb 2014
Joel Creasey’s show last year was brilliantly entertaining, meaning his return performance this year was a lock; however, too much undecided dilly-dallying around by the person who I’d committed to accompany left us struggling to squeeze Creasey in. The penultimate show was the best we could manage; still, at least that meant that we were likely to get one of the more polished performances of his run… and this show was positively gleaming.
After storming onstage to rapturous applause (and welcoming newcomers with a brief flurry of his viciously catty style and super-camp presentation), Creasey quickly sets things straight about his show’s title: he’s not claiming to be a Rock God, he assures us, but instead he intends to honour the people in his life that acted as his Rock Gods.
And, occasionally, he follows up on that.
But most of the time he just tells brilliantly orchestrated stories that left me a wobbly puddle of laughter. There’s tales about being let down by Play School celebrities as a child, and brief snippets from his school years (some of which were mentioned in The Drama Captain last year); there’s relationship stories, mostly involving adversity… which, of course, Creasey easily converts into funny.
Creasey manages to completely convince us of the awe he felt in being chosen to support Joan Rivers, with his backstage gossip tales garnering an almost lascivious response; better still was his description of touring with his mentor, Fiona O’Loughlin, with the chain-smoking lifestyle and aggressive support for each other generating humorous respect. And the pacing of the story in which he beds his mother’s Zumba instructor – whilst staying with his mother – is almost breathtaking.
Little more needs to be said, really: Joel Creasey is camp as hell, incredibly quick-witted, and fucking funny. I’m now convinced that he is one of those comics who will never have a bad show… not even in those redneck regional towns that would normally shun him. That’s another brilliant story, too.
(39) Joel Creasey in Rock God: Viciously catty camp storytelling. Brilliant. #ff2014 #ADLfringe
— Pete Muller (@festivalfreakAU) February 22, 2014