By Nick Bugeja
Josh Glanc has been a staple at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for years, producing frenzied, incoherent (in the best sense of the term), and absurdist shows for those open-minded enough to veer away from traditional stand-up.
Consistent with his past shows, Glanc’s Family Man embraces the ridiculous and the ludicrous, at the expense of conventions and norms, to great effect. Glanc (pronounced ‘Glance’ and not ‘Glank’) mixes together musical theatre, skits, vignettes, callbacks, multiple character transformations (a memorable French photographer and old man stand out), breaking the fourth wall, and audience participation (quite a lot of audience participation) to deliver an engrossing and regularly hilarious performance.
If you tuned into the MICF Gala, you saw a sanitised, diluted version of Glanc’s best bits and performance, clearly in an attempt to appeal to the broadest audience possible. In Family Man, the strangeness and absurdity which defines Glanc’s work is on full display, and optimally realised to leave his audience in stitches. There are times during the show which serve as a kind of interlude or interruption of laughter, including some of the singing parts, though moments of laughter are just around the corner.
Josh Glanc performs Family Man at The Chinese Museum until April 20.
https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/browse-shows/family-man-2/