Comedy Festival 2018: Spencer Jones awakens the audience’s inner-child in The Audition ★★★

UNABASHED silliness from a lovable goofball, but lacks some wit amid the weird.

AS comedy journeys go, this one is tailor-made for the phrase “your mileage may vary”.

Englishman Spencer Jones has landed on these shores for the first time with some formidable notices and an Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination in tow, aiming his efforts squarely at the audience’s inner-child.

Wheeling merrily around a stage strewn with paraphernalia on his roller-sneakers, the perma-grinning Jones mucks about with homemade props and loops his voice on an audio mixer as he loosely bases a show around alter-ego Herbert’s attempts to audition for a Stephen Spielberg movie.

Spencer Jones in The Audition.

Unlike other clown acts of recent years that have employed mild menace, audience participation or poignant storytelling to elevate their shows, Jones offers something sweeter and not remotely threatening, with the only crowd interaction an adorable duet on a vibration plate.

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That’s not to say there’s no art or smarts here and some set-pieces are certainly memorable, but Jones’s ADHD style leaves many of the ideas feeling disposable or simply absurd to no real end.

The hour zips by but so much farce with so little context becomes a little wearing as we yearned for some wit among the weird to differentiate it from an actual children’s show.

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Your enjoyment or otherwise will likely depend on how charming you find Jones and his unremittingly goofy persona. The 41-year-old with a mortgage relishes pointing out the ridiculousness of what we’re witnessing and there’s something genuinely wonderful about someone being this unabashedly daft and making any sort of living out of it.

If you like your clowning pure and uncut, this could be the trip of a lifetime, but we needed more substance amid the silliness.

Spencer Jones, The Audition

Arts Centre Melbourne, Playhouse Rehearsal Room, until Apr 22.

comedyfestival.com.au