Presented by Andrew Taylor Management
Reviewed 20 June 2015
Stand-up comedian, Alex Williamson, better known as ‘that guy from the internet’ performed to a sold-out audience at the Arkaba on Saturday night, 20th June. This young, up-coming comic is gaining quite a name for himself following a successful Fringe season, strong YouTube following and shows available of Netflix. So it’s disappointing to report there’s not a lot of positive things that can be said about his show.
Williamson opened by greeting the crowd with a prolific peppering of the f and c-bombs. While crude language is par for the course in comedy, the sheer amount and immediacy of this verbal assault was confronting and unfortunately set the tone for the rest of the evening.
While Williamson did have good stage presence – a relaxed and confident demeanour that enabled him to build rapport with some of the audience – that’s where the praise stops. For the most part, not only was Williamson unfunny, he was horrifically offensive to women. Shock value is no doubt part of his attraction, but with songs and jokes about sexual assaults on women, advising women who only want a photo with him and aren’t prepared to root him to ‘f-off’, and a myriad of other non-consensual sexual acts not fit for reproduction here, this reviewer just wanted to leave. It’s been suggested that his target audience love this stuff (presumably his target audience are boys in high school) but does that really make it acceptable? What if the show focused on racially based, or homo-sexual based ‘jokes’? It appears sexism towards women is the last comedy frontier and if you don’t laugh, well you’re just uptight, aren’t you?
Along with his stories, there were a number of original songs performed with an acoustic guitar. The first was on the subject matter of Williamson’s penis, taking photos of it and using different filters to make it look bigger, another was about the perils of living in a society that frowns upon public masturbation and yet another poked fun at Asian lady-boy prostitutes. Catching a theme here?
There was one section toward the end where Williamson used a projector to show some of his YouTube clips featuring his voice-over commentary on the soccer. This, at least, was slightly humorous.
If you’re intending to go to one of this comedian’s performances, you’d be best advised to check him out online first so you have an idea what you’re getting yourself in for. My estimation is fifteen year old boys, and those with the mentality of adolescent boys, will find him funny and everyone else, especially women, will be bored by his offensive and not-particularly-funny material.
Reviewed by Samantha Bond
Twitter: @sambond
Season: Adelaide season ended, but continuing interstate
· http://www. arkabahotel.com.au
· https://www.youtube.com/user/shooterwilliamson
· https://instagram.com/shooterwilliamson/
· https://twitter.com/alexwilliamson8
· http://www.andrewtaylormanagement.com/gig-guide-alex-williamson/
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