Comedy Festival 2018: Bob Franklin takes you to the dark side in Yours Sincerely ★★★

FROM one of Australia’s unique comic voices, Bob Franklin, this disturbing, obsidian-black character piece about a sociopathic stand-up comic has more than a grain of truth to it.

REMEMBER, once upon a time, the speculation surrounding the lyrics of Carly Simon’s classic hit You’re So Vain? People wondered: who’s so vain?

Mick Jagger? Warren Beatty? Cat Stevens?

For anyone who’s written, performed or simply mixed in Australian comedy circles over the past 30 years, there’s no such mystery regarding the subject of Bob Franklin’s new show — comedy’s version of You’re So Vain.

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For those who’ve heard the stories — both true and apocryphal — over the years about a certain local comedian and author, Yours Sincerely can be described as not so much thinly veiled as utterly transparent.

There’s no sweet melody here. “Vain” is a bit soft. You’re so “parasitic”, “toxic” and “narcissistic” are more appropriate. And in Franklin’s occasional explosions of pure venom, other words definitely unprintable.

Bob Franklin in Yours Sincerely.

Franklin, in fact, begins his show with another song, Richard Thompson’s Hope You Like The New Me. In the context of what’s to follow, the choice is downright terrifying.

The show: ostensibly, Franklin’s ‘comedian’ is here to plug a new memoir.

It’s a story of redemption, we’re told. But the comedian is also selling himself, a snake oil salesman (the audience is addressed as “folks” a lot) seeking out the gullible, converting us to his twisted worldview, explaining away a supposed history of exploitative and manipulative behaviour towards those close to him.

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For anyone outside comedy’s cognoscenti, Yours Sincerely must be a somewhat different experience. From this angle, oblivious to the reality behind Franklin’s pointed references and excoriating putdowns, most audiences will read Franklin’s show as no more than a disturbing,

fictionalised character piece, a kind of portrait of the artist as a not-so-young sociopath.

There’s no less reward for an audience not being ‘in’. The show is funny — if pitch-black funny is your bag. Franklin’s comedy has always leaned towards the dark side — it’s what makes him such a unique voice in this country — and while there’s more silence than laughs filling the hour, Franklin’s modulated tone and mastery of narrative ensures you hang on every word.

Comedy during the festival takes many forms and comes in many hues. This just might be the bleakest, blackest show around: by turns angry, challenging, disturbing, darkly funny and, for its author at least, most likely highly cathartic.

Bob Franklin, Yours Sincerely

Melbourne Town Hall, corner Swanston and Collins streets until April 22.

comedyfestival.com.au