Eccentric sound artist and comedian, James Hullick, is scattering his way to the JOLTED Arts Space in Northcote for another dose of 'Le Scatterman', as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Part solo concert (prepared piano/guitar/voice/synthesisers) and part commedia dell’arte, Le Scatterman features 60 minutes of unruly flashes of stand-up comedy, video and a twist of performance art to address the struggles of modern role reversals.
The key takeaways
- April 14 – April 16, April 22 – April 23 8 PM.
- Jolted, 342 High Street, Northcote.
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Following Le Scatterman’s full-length premiere and James Hullick’s debut at MICF back in 2020, Le Scatterman encourages us to embrace our ‘inner crap dads’, capitalising on wry humour, unusual versatility of aesthetic and the adventurous multimedia talent of Hullick, bottling it all up into a comedy show like no other you’ve ever seen.
Within the hour-length non-linear performance, Le Scatterman follows the protagonist failing to pick up his kids, leaving them and their mother hanging. While they wait, Scatterman entertains with his unapologetic ‘dad-bod’, plenty of booze and various musical numbers before ‘working from home’. When working from home, Scatterman learns that his ex might have moved on — without him.
Exploring the tensions between artistic practice and family life, Hullick quietly encourages meta-questions surrounding the reality, or surrealism, of Scatterman’s daunting situation. While Hullick as Le Scatterman is the only ‘live’ performer in the work, video is incorporated throughout to depict Scatterman’s ex-wife and children, managing to pull on the heartstrings and sympathise with a lost, broken man.
Structured around an array of Hullick’s genre-bending songs, music runs throughout the production, paying homage to inspiration artists like Bob Dylan, New Order, Johnny Cash and Barry Humphries with Hullick controlling all sound and lighting on stage, giving himself free-wheel drive to allow Le Scatterman to follow its own trajectory. Changing the content as the show unfolds, no two Le Scatterman shows are the same.
Presenting a confronting representation of a man gorging on new lows in parenting, human engagement and generally being crap, in Le Scatterman Hullick and his formidable array of talents ultimately holds up a mirror in which we can see ourselves – creatures of gender categorisations, habit and desire trying to keep it together.
The Le Scatterman show will be preceded by a short stand-up routine by emerging comedian Stuart Flenley who has been rising up through the NDIS sector.
Le Scatterman will run during the MICF from Thursday, April 14 – Saturday, April 16, and Friday, April 22 – Saturday, April 23 at Jolted, 342 High Street, Northcote. Get your ticket through the MICF website.
