Review: Tom Gleeson - Out of Touch at The Regent

Review by Greg Gorton

Times are tight, and attending any MICF show is quite a luxury for most audience members. As much as there are some great moments in Out of Touch, if you have only one show you can get to, then Tom Gleeson’s is (while surprising to me) not the one you want to risk going to.

The Regent was packed with fans of Gleeson from all eras of his three decades in comedy. Some from Hard Quiz, some from Good News Week, and some of us from SkitHouse. Gold Logie Winner and host of two popular shows right now, Tom Gleeson is at his peak so it makes sense that he could pack the house. And this show is, to some degree, about that success.

It has been my experience that there are only two ways to pull off comedy about how rich you have become. You can create a caricature of yourself, becoming Mr Moneybags, and invite ridicule. Or you can treat it as the lucky privilege it is and talk about all the ridiculous, childish things you can do with money. The second-to-last thing you want to do is gloat, and the last is to prove you are actually out of touch. I walked away from this show trying very hard to convince myself that Tom Gleeson wasn’t.

There was good reason to doubt myself. I am sort of out of touch myself. It has been so long since I watched commercial television that I didn’t know Karl Stefanovic was still relevant, or that Dave Hughes was in some kind of celebrity survivor-like show. I’ve enjoyed the few episodes of Hard Quiz I watched, and love the original, British Taskmaster, but I’m more likely to watch iView than to find out if my rental property actually has a TV aerial.

But then I started to think about the actual content of the jokes. Besides the jokes about homeless people not being able to beg for cash, and the “jokes” about not liking being recognised on the street, the comic started the night with old cliches like “women love to buy shoes” and “kids these days are glued to their phones”. Many of those first bits fell flat, not just for me, but for many of the struggling middle-class who splurged for that guy they love from TV.

Fortunately, the quality of jokes turned almost on a dime as Gleeson explored what it is like to be someone successful who gets to work with, and embarrass themselves in front of, their heroes. Then, moving to how his family embarrasses him (and vice versa), he seems to relax into the relatable comic you would expect to find on stage. While some elements of these stories still feel out of touch, often using punchlines that show a far-from-selfless view of the world, stories of childhood innocence and the dangers that can bring brought laughter from all.

Gleeson has a fun little piece at the end of his shows where he has audiences guess what stories were true or not, and using those to throw in some fun call-back humour. In some cases, he was able to recover from early failures, while others seemed only to attempt improv his character from Hard Quiz.

From years of experience, I’ve found that reviewing stand-up comedy rarely involves talking about the lighting and sound, etc, unless it is particularly amazing… or particularly poor. I’m someone who has a lot of time for comics working in the noisy back rooms of pubs, but there is something frustrating when The Regent isn’t prepared to adapt their sound mix for each of its comics. Yes, they go back-to-back-to-back with their stars, but they are the same stars each night. Would I have noticed this if the jokes were brilliant? I’m not sure. But when we are talking about a prestige venue and a prestige act, I think it is fair to ask for better than what I can get in the toilets at the Town Hall.

Tom Gleeson is the broadcast television comic, and his audience happily accepts the middle-class stories of parking lots, kids doing stupid things, and just how an air conditioner works. But with most of us thinking about the cost of the fuel used to get to the show, or the six dollars we paid for a can of coke at the theatre, I have to say I really do think Tom Gleeson was out of touch.

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