Feedum Fighters

As comedies go, Feedum Fighters couldn’t get much more topical.

Daryl Lucas is a chunky soft drink salesman hailing from the genteel, cultural oasis that is the NSW Central Coast. He’s been abducted by a quirky trio of elite, military-minded personal trainers who plan to torture him with several weeks of extreme dieting.

What follows is a rollicking commentary on our nation’s love affair with exploit-o-porn reality TV – highlighting the ironic dual-success of shows which feature both cooking and dieting.

Act one leaps out of the box with relentless in-your-face dialogue, littered with insightfully acerbic one-liners. At first it feels somewhat like an over-the-top TV sketch, but the committed and charismatic ensemble cast brings such warmth to their crazy characters, that the audience can’t help but be drawn into the vulnerable human element that lay beneath all the brow-beating rhetoric.

Act two contains much more light and shade, giving the each of the actors a juicy opportunity to plump their characters out into three, flesh and blood dimensions.

One could be forgiven for thinking Jazz Musician/turned novelist/ turned playwright, Dorian Mode was not actually a proud, long-term resident of the Central Coast himself – so relentless is his geographical character-assassination – but the broad-based humour is quintessentially Australian (and he’s not coy about being anti-PC). Each gratuitous name-drop could easily be replaced with references to any bogan-heavy outer-lying suburb of any capital city in Australia – it’s just that place names such as Wyong and Budgewoi do trip off the tongue in a particularly funny manner.

All technical aspects of the production are slick, and, whilst the direction veered occasionally into being little too ‘proscenium-style’ for such an intimate venue (a pet-peeve of mine), it is more than redeemed by tight, clever movement – and the surprise bonus of some snazzy choreography - a highlight of Act 2.

Those who crave farces, but are sick of being force-fed Ayckbourn and Cooney would find this production very satisfying comedy fare.

Rose Cooper

Images (Top) Paul Hooper and Jason Perini. (Lower) Jacqui Livingston, Jason Perini and Christopher Sellers. Photographer: Neelesh Kale.

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