Tracy's biggest crime was not being funny

PUNCH BREAKING VIEWS: IF you don't perform some simple due diligence before buying a ticket to a comedy show that’s not the performer’s fault.

LET'S get this out of the way up front. Tracy Morgan's show at Hamer Hall in Melbourne on Saturday night was not very good. If I had been reviewing it, I would probably have given it two stars.

But a two-star show does not merit the levels of outrage, opprobrium and threatened protests which have dragged the hysterical reaction to the gig from social media to the mainstream.

Morgan is a confrontingly inappropriate performer. That is his schtick. It’s occasionally jarring and discomfiting, but he is who he is and he will not compromise for the sake of audience sensitivities.

As he said more than once during his performance when the tension in the room was palpable: “I don’t give a f---“. If you don’t like it, leave. Or don’t go in the first place.

This is not a defence of misogyny. Some of Morgan’s material was base and horribly dated. But some of it was very funny, often due to its shock value.

Trying to dictate what’s off-limits for a stand-up is always a dangerous path to take.

Some of the outrage concerns the eye-watering ticket prices, but as comedian Josh Earl wisely tweeted: “Anyone complaining … maybe should have You Tubed his act before paying $70.”

If anyone went along expecting the razor-sharpness of 30 Rock’s dialogue, they would have been horribly disappointed, but if they didn’t perform some simple due diligence beforehand then that’s not the performer’s fault.

What we saw on stage was a persona, a comedian deliberately trying to push boundaries of what is appropriate to make people squirm. I don’t know the man, so I don’t know if that’s what he’s really like. Regardless, if that’s his act and people are willing to pay for it, good luck to him.

I just wish he’d been funnier.

Patrick Horan is a Herald Sun reviewer for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Follow Patrick on Twitter: @patrickjhoran

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