Review date: Saturday 21 June.
Alex Lykos of indie film making fame (Alex & Eve, Me & My Left Brain, Disconnect Me) has built an impressive cult following; his debut stand-up show with Sydney Comedy Festival, Neanderthal, sets out to kill (in the comedic sense) and slay men’s sexist attitudes towards women that has existed since primitive times. Which is fortuitous, because as I was walking home late at night after the show, I heard a man preaching on the corner at Wynyard station: “Ladies!!! God will help you find a man!!! You don’t have to dress like a sl*t to impress him!!!”
Gee, thanks.
Alex makes monkey brain about as appealing as a toddler having a tantrum. Sl*t shaming is so boring and passé, and he obliquely owns up to it when he was young and foolish.
Alex has a I’m-a-good-guy vibe going on, although I must admit there were parts of the show that had me cringing. Remember the preacher giving unsolicited wardrobe advice? Hearing any man tell me a sacred part of my female anatomy is ‘pleasurable’, and is ‘open to lots of visitors, especially black ones’ and should not in any way be confused with Donald Trump, seems a bit….tawdry, and clumsy. Why do I need to hear a man tell me that??
An acerbic comedian like Shaun Micallef was the master of being stupidly awkward when it came to women because he could be so over the top and ridiculous that the audience would be crying with laughter. The joke was always on him for being such an egotistical d!ck to begin with.
Alex tells us about his young daughter who asserts herself like mummy does and asks a lot of hard questions. Alex freely admits to his emasculation yet will do the infuriating thing of doing the bare minimum and expecting praise, like stacking the dishwasher as a ‘present’ to his wife and deliberately getting it wrong just so she can get pi$$ed off and criticise him.
Politics seems to be a crutch in this show with lots of references to Dutton and Trump, but if we are exploring how stereotypes begin in the family, I’m curious to know how and why a smart woman like Melania pursued marriage to Trump as leverage for her own career. There’s a dynamic in that relationship that’s just itching to be unravelled.
Like a good Aussie bloke learning to be house trained, Alex shares his home gardening grooming rituals and how often his dad farts compared to his mother. The support act (the lovely but don’t-call-her-exotic Korinna Gouros) has a dad just like mine who can compliment a mango but not his own flesh and blood. (Speaking of exotic fruits and ethnic dads, my dad would threaten to call the police on the cockatoos whenever they made a racket and stole all his mandarins from his mandarin tree). On some level I feel like Korinna and I could be besties. I’m sure Alex and I could be besties too. But whilst I’m probably not the target audience for his show (I’m too old, single and cynical, thank you very much), I’ll concede that there may be mums and dads out there on a similar trajectory trying to shift the paradigm for their children when it comes to creating gender equality. And that, at the bare minimum, is admirable.
Neanderthal played at The Terminal at Factory Theatre in Marrickville.
The support act was Korinna Gouros.
Image: Sourced from Alex Lykos’ Insta page.