#ADLfringe

Justin Hamilton: Little Victories
 
★★★★★

Adelaide Fringe. Token Events. Rhino Room – Drama Llama. 1 Mar 2023

Little Victories? It’ll take a while to understand the why, what and where Hamilton is going with this show and its title, but it’s totally worth it.

Hamilton, a man who just turned 50, in the midst of an age of intense, totally insane global and local dislocation found there’s loads to laugh about. All of it hilariously dark except, in the eyes of right wing Christian fundamentalists. Their happy place has arrived.

Hamilton regales his audience with tales great and small of his shambolic Covid pandemic and post pandemic life experiences with artful throwbacks to childhood.

We’re sucked into a cyclone of beautifully crafted, hysterically funny anecdotes and observations of just how mad 21st Century life has turned out to be (so far). The observations reverberate within us all with a universal ‘that’s me’ sentiment. We roll on with Hamilton, united as one in sympathy and cheery laughter, even at the darkest most morbid tale.

Hamilton attempts with gusto to articulate the total ‘what the actual?’ zeitgeist of this improbable age. It seems impossible. Yet he does it with tales of friendships ended over a YouTube Duck Marathon, Yoko Ono and the most stupid ordinary way Covid itself creates friendship stress.

Where are these victories the title promises?

They’re right there in our face. They are our laughter and one final punch line story summing up an hour of seemingly discombobulated madness, hiding a simple truth.

David O’Brien

When: 28 Feb to 4 Mar

Where: Rhino Room – Drama Llama

Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au