Jeff Green: Leaping Off The Bell Curve, March 29, 2013 ***

Leaping Off the Bell Curve

Swiss House, 89 Flinders Lane, March 28 until April 21, 2013
Melbourne International Comedy Festival 
Star rating: ***1/2
Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Review also published in Herald Sun online on Fri March 29. KH 

"Green garners giggles and guffaws."

Jeff Green did well to escape his mind-numbing life as a chemical engineer in the UK in the 1980s because, let’s face it, blowing stuff up may be fun, but have you ever met a funny engineer?

As he paces the tiny stage like a caged cat, Green relives the social disadvantages of being a Chem. Eng. student and the pressure to achieve greatness in the gas industry to placate his doting mother and hypercritical dad.

He has the crowd hooting at the pitfalls of job interviews, the liberating decision to be a comic and ditch the boredom of selling acetylene to welders, the parade of uncomfortable gigs, difficult audiences and the dearth of decent food in country towns in England.

He meanders from his central topic to muse on the vagaries of new and old relationships, being dumped, the art of nagging, the parade of UK comics marrying Aussie women and the horrors of shopping for a new bed at Franco Cozzo (what was he thinking?).

Much of Green’s material is laugh-out-loud funny and filled with witty diversions and surprises, other gags are titter-worthy, and there are odd moments when the audience smiled rather than laughed or the odd joke fell flat.

It all boils down to sound advice to take a risk, leave your achingly boring life and jump into a new, exciting and unknown world.

By Kate Herbert