REVIEW: JUDE PERL - LET'S HANG OUT

4.5 out of 5 stars

One of my fabulous festival favourites is back with a darker but equally as funny show, Let’s Hang Out, Jude Perl is know for her fantastic voice, excellent skills on a piano, her magical, awkward comedic timing and her witty way with words, composing fantastic, savage or observant songs about her life.

She may or may not be 35 and still living in a share house, but she’s also a multi-Greenroom Award winner, including in last week’s 2017 Greenroom Awards! She fuses her wit and charm in stand up comedy with her song writing talent and brilliant voice to bring you an hour of social commentary, wondering why people do and say the weird things they do, and walks you through her last year – dealing with a break up of a six year relationship, a new relationship starting, and all her friends having babies. It’s a little less jovial and light hearted than last year’s show Roommates the Musical, but she is still one of the most genuine, honest feeling performers going around – she’s just here to share the ridiculousness, the reality and the comedy of her life, make us laugh and relate, and have a good time with song.

She’s just finished at the Brisbane Comedy Festival and the Adelaide Fringe, and tackles her next challenge: explaining to people why she doesn’t want kids, and the rhetoric, stereotypes and plain stupid conversations that practical, professional and well thought out young women go through every time someone questions them about potential offspring, or their ticking time clock.

She’s going to ask you the important questions, like why do we worship Beyonce so intently, why do we ‘woo’, explores putting yourself back out there and the struggles of adulthood and growing up. But her most unique number of the night is one that sent the audience roaring – a story of our stomachs reactions to what we put it in. Following a quest to discover her tummy troubles and her discovery of not one but two parasites, and not one but two poop tests, she sings this ditty with glee about her imagining her stomach’s horror and she shovels burgers, junk food and coffee into it.

Prepare for some audience interaction, with a three part harmony sung by a full house of fans to her song ‘Hey Hi Hello’, an ode to what our brains do when we’re trying to talk to someone we like. There’s a clever number about the weird sayings out mums say, like catching flies with honey, and how you don’t actually want to catch flies, and ‘Sharehouse” is a catchy number that will stay in your head for weeks after.

Make sure you catch her before she closes on 22 April at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, before she heads of to Frankston and then Sydney, before her next show in Melbourne in June.

Tickets and more info: https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2018/shows/jude-perl-lets-hang-out

This article first appeared at: http://www.theatrepeople.com.au/jude-perl-lets-hang-out/ on 18 April 2018.