By Lisa Clark
More of an author’s book talk than a comedy show, Adam Kay has taken out lots of his most shocking and amusing experiences from his personal diaries to put into this show. The stories are often extreme and outrageous and more believable for it. I’ve seen similar medical stories told by other comedians and also from a friend at the end of working exhausting Saturday nights in Emergency at a major hospital. So although occasionally too graphic, little of it felt new or fresh to me.
The first couple of stories were so disgustingly off-putting, if I hadn’t been stuck in the middle of a row I would’ve walked out. If only for a breather. There was no warning from Adam (apart from the sign upstairs before you enter about upsetting content) about how gruesome and distressing he was about to become. It’s very early in the show, which might be his audience test for if your stomach is up for this, then stick around for the rest of the show. I certainly failed at finding humour in it, while others laughed in shock at their extreme repulsiveness.
My main problem is that I didn’t find most of these tales very funny or titillating or whatever he means them to be. These are people’s lives and I find it a bit weird that he’s still milking them for attention fifteen years after he’s stopped practicing. He’s a charming performer but provides no context, very little about his own life and there was no through tale or over arcing story. He just reads dates from his diaries and tells the anecdotes in a very matter of fact manner. Perhaps those who’ve read the books or seen the TV show based on the books would understand the context better, but the laughs in the audience are mostly sporadic and middling, meeting his rhythm or shocked laughter.
Kay’s show had the rhythm of a one-liner comedian, and realising that he needed to add a bit of colour and movement for the audience, he’s broken it up with some lame musical parody songs, despite not being a brilliant singer. One is a running gag where the audience gets to “guess the ailment” singing along to the tune of “Hallelujah” and the rest are all more of his anecdotes or medical facts put to the tunes of famous songs such as “Total Eclipse of the Heart”. It could be that my benchmark for musical comedy is fairly high but the audience were having a nice time singing along. Kay then ends the show with the tragic tale that took him out of the industry and advice for those in the audience who are currently in the industry to look after themselves and take real breaks when needed.
Stand up comedy about working in the medical industry has been around a long time. Jo Brand and Georgie Carroll for example are brilliantly funny storytellers and their experiences are full of the sort of gallows humour that the medical profession previously only shared amongst themselves. Kay’s brutal and honest anecdotes certainly entertained the crowd, and if you’ve got a stronger stomach than me, this might be for you.
Adam Kay performs This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor at The Playhouse, The Arts Centre Melbourne until April 20.