Comedy Festival 2018: Alistair Barrie’s satirical stab delivers in The InternationAL

STURDY, liberal-minded set from middle-aged UK comic Alistair Barrie, who worries about the world his daughter is growing up in. Includes quality poo jokes.

THOUGH he doesn’t put any tickets on himself, Alistair Barrie certainly gives himself a big enough brief — to solve all the world’s problems in a snappy 50 minutes.

He’s doesn’t quite make it, of course, though he does offer a bevy of thoughts, jabs and one-liners about a handful of prime issues, key among them being Harvey Weinstein and, by inescapable association, the sexual abuse of hotel pot plants.

Given how many comedians are offering their two cents about the whole #metoo sexual harassment farrago, Barrie echoes the most common observations, with some additional deep notes about the especially perverse nature of the deeds involved.

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He can’t help but bring in American comedian Louis CK, whose fetish for having women watch him pleasure himself cost him a huge fan-base of comics. Barrie slices him up nicely.

Yet while hitting these spots squarely, he doesn’t push beyond the obvious, sticking to the same side of the story as most comedians.

Early in the show he makes a wily political jibe about how long it takes the Left to get anything done. This seemed to promise a pillorying of that side of the divide.

Alas, it did not arrive, and it quickly became clear why. Barrie is, for the most part, a fairly boiler-plate liberal comedian, though a very good one.

Confident, fluent and slightly over-dressed in a sharp black outfit — a bit too formal, perhaps, for the spacious, nuclear war-ready confines of the subterranean venue — he skates through his routine with crowd-pleasing polish.

Alistair Barrie in The InternationAL.

At 46 and with a young daughter and a wife he clearly adores — the show is a de facto tribute to her — he is concerned about the “furiously binary world” his child will grow up in (similar, incidentally, to the theme of Nazeem Hussain’s show.)

He deftly touches on the plight of young people facing a thin job market and a fat chance of ever owning a home. He dives into the ever-persistent threat of Russia — a very funny bit — and same-sex marriage.

A highlight is a terrific stab at local culture as he ponders the power of the cricket cheating scandal (a favourite gag this year) to so obsess the Australian media Barrie thought there was no other news for a week.

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His Trump tirade falls into line with what most comics say about the US President, about what a dirty rotten scoundrel he is, and so forth. These gags have gotten tired very quickly, so the challenge is there for somebody to breathe life into such a rich target.

Amongst Barrie’s funniest moments are his anecdotes from the homefront. The art of male self-pleasuring comes in for special attention — a mandatory topic for male comics, it seems — as does the advent of having a child.

Though he manages to mix some social commentary in, Barrie’s central focus is the very mixed feelings he had when his life-changing bundle of joy arrived. He offsets the joys of first-time fatherhood with the toxic discharges babies are capable of. It’s really funny stuff.

Barrie kept his crowd of about 60 constantly chuckling, and though there are no real surprises in the show he brings it home with a very well-honed finale that manages to take something good out of a bad world.

Alistair Barrie, The InternationAL

The Sub Club, Flinders Court, 7.15pm, until April 21.

comedyfestival.com.au