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Juke, 25th August 1990. By Peter Walsh
Doug Anthony Allstars
Venue: Canberra Theatre
And when they're good, they're very very good. When they're bad, they still have the charisma to overcome the lapses of self indulgence. Such is the media blitz on the DAAS that it's inevitable that they'd stale out in a very short piece of time. A weekly stint on Big Gig can ho-hum even the best comedy act.
So how do the Doug Anthonys get over this? Why, they become even more obnoxious and outrageous than before, absolutely pinning the terrified crowd to the back of the hall! Opening act Moriarty Brothers had earlier lulled the masses to a safety level with a series of campy jazzy songs. The DAAS smashed that quite briefly, their intro tape crashing through the speakers, startling some of the patrons. Onstage they whooped, they hollered, they made nasty noises, they bared their bums, they gyrated and leaped, they emptied garbage bins, they poked their tongues out. They did everything to assault every sense going.
On Big Gig, it's Tim Ferguson and Paul McDermott who are the resident nasties, and Richard Fiddler the forlorn dolt forever picked on. Tonight, it was Fiddler who cast the evil eye. For instance, there's one segment of the show where the audience is divided into three, and the winner gets to slap any of the Allstars. But first she had to endure the most astounding barrage of abuse and humiliation from Fiddler first. The audience cringed for her; when she finally got the chance to slap him, the crowd bayed its approval. The Allstars then insisted the audience slap the person next to them (too bad if you were sitting next to a nasty looking biker...), getting into the spirit of things by running up and down the aisle, thumping audience members who caught their eye, howling with delight.
Why it works so well is that DAAS see themselves as being the only ones who can misbehave. When a girl had the audacity to get onstage without being invited by them, Fiddler tried to choke her. Not a pretend one, either. Of course, you can't always count on that. Later when Fiddler went on walk-about through the audience looking for a victim, he slapped the wrong person. The guy punched him back, a brawl ensued, Richard called to his two mates for backup (they stayed on the stage, instead), the audience member got involved in the fracas, which ended when Fiddle struggled back to the stage, clothes absolutely torn, screaming defiance. Yes, they're nasty, yes they're rivetting, yes they're fresh comedy; yet when you get females from the audience throwing their underwear onto the stage, then you sense they're taking their dark shadows to a totally different attraction altogether.
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