Review: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? The BEAST is a Riot at Sydney Opera House

The only thing missing was the cow being in labour. Practically an episode of Packed to the Rafters if it were guest-written by Seth MacFarlane, The Beast brought together three pouty but no less gorgeous gals, the Australian Zachary Quinto, a True North reject and I'm pretty sure the guy from Wolf Creek along with playwright who's the playwright, don't forget he's so talented he's the playwright who wrote this between kissing Kat Stewart on the nose a lot in Offspring, Eddie Penultimate. If you're gunning to be the godparents of your best friend's children, take them to see this! It's bloodthirsty and backward, really gets to the core of humanity: Hipster nonsense.

If you thought any of the above was in any way entertaining, then you definitely want to spend two hours laughing so hard you choke and choking so hard you laugh in the company of six woeful individuals, for an irreverent masterpiece by cabaret court-master Eddie Perfect. Now please relax as I purge all the sexist, racist and all around politically incorrect statements made prior to review what is absolutely worth suspending your sensibilities for. The Beast is a tonic to contemporary living and millennial aspirations, scintillating and visceral.

Three assumed friends Simon, Baird and Rob (Rohan Nichol, Eddie Perfect, Toby Truslove) are lost at sea with a maniacal Skipper on the brink of death (Peter Houghton). Starving and sniping at one another, things seem hopeless until a Benny-Hill-esque scene change throws us forward to the now post-mental meltdown Rob and his fraught wife Sue (Heidi Arena) moving into the country where alpha-fail Simon lives off the land with his suppressed wife Jen (Christie Whelan Browne), and try-hard Baird also resides with his bold wife Marge (Alison Bell). As a welcome, they take it upon themselves to procure an organic calf to be live butchered and nose-to-tail degustation served. The Beast fulfils its promise of the worst dinner party ever when the babysitter is a man (!), they have to kill the calf themselves (!!), tables are turned (!!!) and the events that transpired on the boat come to gruesome light (!!!!).

Black comedy is an Australian favourite, and being performed in the Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre, expectations were high for this remount after a killer season with Melbourne Theatre Company starring Virginia Gay and Kate Mulvany. That might have been why the performances didn't seem to quite reach the peaks of hysteria they should have, and why the chemistry made for many laughs but not the kind where you can hear the gates of hell opening for you for finding the thing remotely funny. The strength of the work was therefore in the already heightened moments of offal and taboo, which Perfect's script offers in abundance. Intelligent, shocking and woven into a tradition re-emerging with shows like Black Comedy and You Can't Ask That, The Beast brought elements of bouffant, Monty Python and Number 96. It would have certainly suited (pointed at) Melburnian pomp well. Standout performances by Bell (the physical comedy with the wine was to slaughter for), Truslove (running about whole first quarter of Act II with that cigarette pack down there is Helpmann-worthy), Whelan Browne (the funniest performer playing the straightest character would be criminal if you weren't so good), and Perfect (MasterChef would be well advised to get you hosting for your stabbing technique alone).

Simon Phillips' vision of this antithesis to FRIENDS was dialled in to the audience Eddie-Perfectly, and set about the dynamics of the cast dynamically but disparately. Kudos go of course to Dale Ferguson and Corinne Hesket whose laundry budget must be about as big a headache as Wicked. The modular set also tied in perfectly with the holier-than-thou nature of the characters as designed by him. Lighting Design Trent Suidgeest will get my bill for the aneurism I suffered for the strobing scene changes, as will Puppet Designer Orlando Norrish for the psychologist I've scheduled in to decode my barbaric dreams concerning cows. Jokes aside, absolute ovation for the fully functioning uncredited cow.

Tickets available here.
Images by Ken Nakanishi.

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