Review: Wil Anderson at Herald Theatre

Wil Anderson gives his homeland a tough time. Photo / Supplied

Apart from his lily-white feet and jandals, the first thing you notice about Wil Anderson as he wanders on stage are the bulging tendons in his neck.

He looks more like a howler in a rock band than an Australian comedian. He uses these well-developed muscles to great effect when mocking his fellow countrymen and the Aussie accent in variously camp, dumbed-down, or over-the-top ways.

"I tell ya, Aussies turn into seagulls when they get angry," he squawks.

The thing is, when a bloke stands up there preparing to give his views - Wilosophy he calls it - on some of the world's most cliched issues, like war, drugs, abortion, euthanasia, and the recession, you almost glaze over before he starts.

But Anderson is a fair dinkum comedic scholar worthy of a position on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's Cabinet - not that he'd want the spot because Rudd gets a hammering tonight.

He's silly, but also thoughtful, at times beautifully brash, and best of all, he gives Australia a bollocking because he knows his beloved country is backward (for example the Government's citizenship test gets a roasting).

But Anderson is not solely focused on Australia. He also shares his dislike of money (the only financial talk he's got time for is news like "The Vietnamese dong remained stiff in the face of other currencies") and his love for the "fun area" of the human body - and since he's an Aussie it doesn't take much imagination to figure out where he's referring to.

WIL ANDERSON

Where: Herald Theatre
When: 8.30pm, until Saturday