Laugh! Review: Sean Cullen in Wood, Cheese & Children

Town Hall Laugh! Chamber

Review: Greg Dixon


What is Sean Cullen's line anyway?

At first it didn't sound promising. Within minutes of him taking the stage, there was a strong sense that this big, cuddly bloke from Canada seemed about to take us down a path comics have trodden since Adam choked on an apple.

Picking on the audience is top of the list on page one of the Book of Stand-up Comedy. And using it to improvise has become something of drag thanks to television's long-running, highly successful Whose Line Is It Anyway?

It is fortunate, then, that this man's brain is not wired like those of ordinary men, or even ordinary comics.

In Cullen's hands picking on the punters then winging it seemed like a brand new thing.

You could call it interactive Monty Python done by a guy with ADD, jet lag and a diet of too many food additives and too much pop culture. Or you could just call it very, very funny.

Songs and his big, broad voice (accompanied by guitarist Dylan Goodhue) provide the show's backbone.
Some he ad-libs from his audience's suggestions, others are set pieces like the country and western tune about love gone wrong that goes something like this: "I'm in a love triangle with Siamese twins ... I don't know where one starts and the other one begins."

Then there's Father Sean and his readings from the gospel of a little know contemporary of Jesus, Saint Justin.

"I know you're wondering, `Shouldn't I be in a gymnasium teasing naked boys?'" he begins. "Well if there is room for laughter there is room for Jesus."

What follows is a series of hilarious pseudo-biblical stories which the good preacher hopes "touch us, but not literally because that would violate my parole."

Cullen is a masterful impersonator too. Stephen Hawking doing Neil Diamond tunes, Sean Connery, Van Morrison, Meatloaf, Neil Young ... crikey, you'd have sworn they were in the room making complete pillocks of themselves.

What that means is that this guy is good, very good, and you have until May 8 to see him.