Slim Limits – The Second Coming of Gods Cowboy [FringeTIX]
George Catsi @ Fringe Factory (151 Hindley Street)
8:30pm, Fri 6 Mar 2009
It’s a high-energy opening – into the packed Fringe Factory venue (151 Hindley holds about 30 people, at a pinch) struts Reverend Slim Limits, one of God’s Cowboys. Slim’s off-sider, Brother Billy, is on the keyboard, creating church-a-rific organ punctuation, and laying down the bedrock for the sermon. He’s got the crowd clapping and chanting, there’s hallelujahs a-plenty, big smiles all around from the crowd. Reverend Slim steps to the mike, and…
…the whole show turns to shit.
It’s just as well the audience was early-Friday-night-intoxicated, because a flat crowd would have made this performance embarrassing. Appalling. As a character, Slim is hopelessly underdeveloped – it seems that the “cowboy” moniker is the sole comic contribution, with cow-fucking references and mildly amusing Bible pairings: “the meat shall inherit the earth”, “kneel and praise meat”, et cetera. There’s a decent video presentation for Slim’s BibleLand development – featuring the “John the Baptist Water Slide” and the “Joseph & Mary Go Round”, but really… that’s it. That’s all the fun I had.
I’ve seen more than one reference that George Catsi has been working on the Slim Limits character for years; I find that rather difficult to believe, because his delivery was utterly amateurish – constantly dropping the preacher’s accent, checking notes, fluffing lines. In fact, Brother Billy (Gep Blake) was the real star of the show – constantly gazing at Slim with the gaping mouth of the meek sheep, and singing up a storm. And at least he managed to stay in character.
Still, the pissed chap next to me laughed his arse off during this show. I, however, couldn’t wait for it to end.