Adelaide Fringe 2019: Jack Tucker: Comedy Standup Hour
Review by Phoebe Christofi
Venue: Spare Room at The Garden of Unearthly Delights
When: 21 Feb — 17 March
Cost: $20–$26
A man stumbles onto the stage, his suit jacket dirty, his white shirt stained, the zipper on his pants undone. His cheeky grin beams as he swaggers towards the audience, spilling a beer in one hand and accepting an “award” with the other.
Ladies and gentlemen meet Jack Tucker!
The American comedian (Zach Zucker) plays up the New York accent to an almost undistinguishable, and illegible speech which is both hilarious and adds character to Zucker’s act. He revels in audience participation which he highly encourages, consistently mocking his audience which they inevitably walk straight into. Consistently making jokes regarding all forms of human genitalia and likening the chance of successful sex to the weather report, Zucker does not come up short on material.
Not even letting walk-outs hurt his pride, Zucker incorporates their disappearances into his act effortlessly — the lighting dims, soft piano notes fill the tent, and he subtlety fills his eyes with water which so happens to be hidden nearby.
The perfect stitch up, and Zucker performs it with the ease of a man that has perfected it over the years.
Much of Zucker’s comedy was at the cost of his own dignity, yet this did not deter him from persevering. Bringing out all the stops, he utilises the plastic egg, the cord of the microphone, a piece of ham (which is likened to a vagina, and which Zucker promptly incorporates into a skit — redeeming himself from his previous joke about genitalia), making jokes at the expense of his wife and his small son, and to top it all off, impersonations! We were even blessed to hear the imitations of Christopher Walken (which sounded surprisingly like Arnold Schwarzenegger), Donald Trump (…Schwarzenegger?), and a combination of Johnny Depp and Clint Eastwood (not Schwarzenegger!)
From the first minute of the show, we were introduced to the song “American Woman”, which would be played for a second or even half a second whenever America was mentioned, or Zucker made a joke — which was more often than not. If you didn’t know the song before, you can be sure that you’ll be humming along to the tunes after the show.
This performance has a lot of potential, and I look forward to seeing how it evolves throughout the Fringe season.
