Review: Confrontational bogan with plenty of targets

With his thin handlebar moustache, dank bogan hairdo, and a squinty-eyed glance, Canadian comic Glenn Wool is obviously an accomplished stirrer, even before he opens his mouth.

When he does speak, in his quavering, stoned lilt, he not only becomes a nightmare for anyone sitting in the front row but for everyone from his ex-wife and "greedy business suits" to Somali pirates and Icelanders. They're all fair game.

Wool might look seedy and sound creepy enough to inspire a giggle and shiver at the same time, but the guy is clever. His expansive lateral-thinking when tackling the world's pressing issues is genius.

Here's his take on the recession. He asks us what we'd like to do with these fat-cat, suit-wearing businessmen who have lost the world trillions.. We'd want to kill them wouldn't we? So imagine, he asks us, if these suits looked like him - a woolly bogan. They would be lined up under the pretence of going to an AC/DC concert and marched into a chamber to be gassed.

The twist? Wool and his mates quite like getting high off the gas. Brilliant. My mate and I snigger away with a particularly loud cackler up the back, but elsewhere it doesn't go down well. Wool responds, "Get over it".

He doesn't shy away from confronting the small - and "timid" as he labels us - crowd.

We are quiet initially, which probably has something to do with a paedophile joke that even Wool thinks might have been a little off.

Much of the show is based on his divorce (which was nowhere near as painful as "the last year of a loveless marriage").

He's masterful as he switches between being himself, an Italian maitre d', an Italian chef, and a Swedish chap called Thor, when telling of the most Italian moment ever; and then there's his warning about not mixing Ecstasy and whisky because "You end up punching everyone in their beautiful faces."

Tonight we also meet Sober Glenn, Drunk Glenn and Cocaine Glenn. Sometimes Sober Glenn deletes Cocaine Glenn's number from his phone, but Drunk Glenn knows a mate whose got Cocaine Glenn's number and gets back in touch. "And the cycle starts over again," grins Wool gleefully.

He's offensive, cheeky and cruisy yet confrontational. But he's just being himself - so get over it and have a laugh.

GLENN WOOL

Where: The Classic.
When: 8.30pm, until Saturday.