★★★★
Tonight, comedic duo Sammy J & Randy prove there is no greater love (or hate) than between a man and his purple puppet.
As the lights dim over the crowd on this Monday evening, keyboardist Sammy J dances onto the stage while his puppet companion, Randy, makes his entrance behind a strategically placed box.
Within minutes, their hilarious, crass and boisterous brand of sexually charged jokes begin. Exploding with expletives and heady with ball-groping (Randy to Sammy J) and nipple-sucking (again, Randy to Sammy J), there’s little the pair don’t do or say to express their impassioned love for one another… and a shared lover or two.
Then comes the heckling. Not from the crowd, mind you, but from the performers. Together in what Randy calls “the weirdest thing we’ve ever done onstage”, they gang up against an audience member who has refused to disclose his name and demand that he “show us your wallet”, threatening to continue on in this childish manner all night long until he complies. Naturally, he complies. But not in the way they expect.
This unorthodox audience participation doesn’t end here, as latecomers are mocked in a traditional round of the ‘Fuckers Are Late’ ditty, DVDs are thrown into the audience and promptly withdrawn, money is stolen from an audience member and returned to another one, and Randy’s dream of crowd-surfing comes true as he is thrown into the audience, mouth open and arms flailing manically, travelling to the very back of the crowd before being returned to his rightful place onstage.
Oh, and in between all this rambunctious behaviour, there are some well-worn musical numbers woven in. They feature the politically charged ‘Australian Christmas’, ‘Girlfriend’ and the alliteration-heavy laughable little love song, ‘Lucy Littleton The Labrador’. They’re ludicrously lewd and libidinously lively.
Sammy J & Randy were reviewed at the Playhouse, Sydney Opera House on Tuesday October 19 as part of Just For Laughs Sydney 2015.
