Callum Straford Nails Everything
Billed as being about a ‘perfectionist ready to transcend his flaws’, Callum Straford’s show is about his attempts at improving himself and achieving success and, sadly, not transcending much at all. That’s the thread that ties his show together. The stage persona is doofus guy who wonders, ‘Should I change my sheets?’ He’s trying to make it as a comic and make sense of his life. He’s a likeable, good looking fellow with a good singing voice, who plays the piano and the ukulele well.
One of the best – that is, funniest - moments is when he launches into what he says is his favourite song, George Harrison’s Something (In the way she moves) – only to be upstaged when his bio box guy suddenly appears on stage, takes over and sings better than Callum. Is this funny? Yes, but also a bit humiliating.
Later, Callum proves he can write and sing a good comic song, with inventive rhymes and sharp observation, but the song’s premise rather undercuts it. It’s from the point of view of a set of AirPods dropped into the Yarra and thus what it’s like down there in the mud and the debris. Okay. Next.
On the way through, Callum mostly demonstrates his various attempts at transcending his flaws. As a budding comedian (he says), he tries some ‘crowd work’, but the time allowed for the audience to participate is cut short. Oh. So that didn’t work. He’s been trying to learn Spanish via Duolingo, but he can’t seem to get past a couple of phrases. He tries meditation but can’t seem to concentrate. He tries on a dopey hat and a hectic Hawaiian shirt to demonstrate what not to wear to a party – and follows up by what not to say if you want to get laid. This might be funnier if what not to say were less nerdy or politically incorrect. And so on.
Self-deprecation is, of course, a very familiar trope in stand-up comedy. It works (usually), and it gets a laugh because the audience recognises the comedian’s action/thought/feeling and thinks, ‘Oh, my god – ouch - I’ve done/thought/felt that too.’ It’s curiously reassuring – and it’s okay when the comedian is bouncing back from failure, shrugging it off and soldering on.
But when self-deprecation slides into pathos, into ‘poor me’, it gets risky. The audience is invited to feel sorry for the comedian, but it doesn’t, and it won’t. Self-pity is a switch-off. Callum comes perilously close to the switch-off.
The show’s called Callum Straford Nails Everything’, but he doesn’t nail anything – except being sometimes funny about it. And he knows he doesn’t or hasn’t nailed anything: he admits it and apologises for it – but maybe perfection is an unattainable goal? The closing numbers in his show say just that. Where does that leave us? The audience seemed to me bemused, laughing politely rather than falling about. But what response does Callum want?
Michael Brindley
Photographer: Mark Gambino
Subscribe to our E-Newsletter, buy our latest print edition or find a Performing Arts book at Book Nook.