Tom Middlebrook : Stranger Than Fiction
Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2010
Review by David Slattery, The Groggy Squirrel

Tom Middlebrook is quite into his conspiracy theories. His show is essentially based on them, as well as all the nutters of the human race that create them. David Ike for example. And the lizard people. Yes, according to some, the most powerful people on the planet are in fact descendants of lizards. Which actually would explain why most world leaders are tiptoeing around the issue of Global Warming; they’re lizards, they love the heat.

Most of the humour was in a similar vein; taking an amusing real theory put forward by a group, and making humorous observations and gags about them sounds rather boring when you put it like that, but I quite enjoyed some of his punch lines.

He asked us about our lame super powers (sorry, but I couldn’t help but think of David O Doherty’s “Very Mild Super Powers” song at the time) and we learnt about such things as HAARP and the Hadron Collider. He made an interesting point about some views put forward by people on religious forums (essentially he dissolved an argument into a self-contradicting concept with the hypothetical situation of prison rape. I won’t spoil it, you’ll have to ask him yourself to find out how).

He seemed a tad nervous, stumbling over his lines just once or twice, but he was so damn likeable it was impossible to really feel any disdain or disappointment about it. He was friendly, and overall, very comfortable with his audience, and completely unperturbed by the fact that there were only about twelve of us. I definitely enjoy seeing any comedian who performs just as well to ten people as to ten thousand, and ultimately, ten is probably more difficult.

I’m not going to lie, the show did not have any real uniqueness. But the man himself had a great attitude, and presented himself well. You could do SO much worse.

If you were thinking seeing someone this year who you maybe haven’t heard of before, this would be the show I would recommend for you.

(I should mention that afterwards I had drinks with the man, and he learnt something new about flaming absinthe shots. Yes, you CAN spill them while they are still lit, and you WILL burn your hand. Something to remember for next time, Tom).

Tom Middlebrook: Reality Smites - by Steve Smart, RHUM magazine
Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2009
Chuckle Factor: 8 under fire / 10

The Drunken Poet is the kind of venue Melbourne creatives thrive in, one that is willing to take a risk on emerging artists while also attracting established performers. That said, a gig at the Poet can be a challenge for even the most seasoned performer. It’s a pub, so the space is intimate but open to all, and sometimes those ‘all’ are loud and not interested in listening to anything outside their own conversations.

Now me, I’m a cruel bastard – I want my comedians bleeding from the gums. I want to see pain. The truth is that being forced to work in a room full of people who couldn’t give a shit is great training, makes you tough and wily and generally better than artists who run off stage crying at the drop of a heckle.

And so it was when Tom Middlebrook approached the microphone. And Tom did the best thing any performer can do when faced with such a situation. He stopped and said, “Would you like to see me do a somersault?” Well yes, we would like to see him do a somersault. Two standing somersaults in fact. Even the guys next to me at the bar, who had appeared largely uninterested, seemed impressed.

The main premise of the show is, ‘How do you deal with reality when you stop being a pothead?’ How do you relate to the world around you, and to your television? And who the hell is writing CSI and what is wrong with them? The CSI bit was one of my favourite moments – Tom’s theory made a frightening amount of sense. The bit about parents being unnervingly supportive of their children's pot habits was also very funny.

Middlebrook addresses these vexing problems via a story about an imaginary and incredibly complicated trip to Mexico. It’s clever material. On a good night with a more attentive crowd the Mexico section is apparently quite a bit longer, which would be worth seeing.

I recommend taking a group. Get there early, grab some good seats, settle in and show some support for an up-and-coming talent. And buy Tom a pint; he’s working bloody hard up there.

Weird Science -Tim Richards, The Age - March 26, 2008 - Rating: 2 stars

Tom Middlebrook is a nervy guy in a T-shirt with a picture of Jesus on the front and the words "STOP FOLLOWING ME" on the back. His blurb suggests he'll be skewering the holy cows of religion and science, but it's only half right: while he has a dig at the illogicalities of the former, he's more quizzical about the latter. He has a solid presence and holds attention, but his patter involves a lot of subjects - Dan Brown's novels, chaos theory - that seem well worn. And his material on his drug experiences is of more interest to the user than the listener. But Weird Science is not without its thought-provoking moments and the relaxed venue enhances its appeal.

Groggy Squirrel - Weird Science - Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2008

It is known that sometimes the title and synopsis of a comedy festival show bear little resemblance to the finished product and this can lead to disappointment. Tom Middlebrook’s show was accurately described in the festival guide, however it may still lead to confusion. The title Weird Science (What the bleep does God know?) may have misled some people who came along expecting a show full of science facts but that’s not what Tom was about.

Tom began his show by launching into a monologue about religion that pointed out the inconsistencies, erroneous beliefs and his colourful theories. He had clearly done a lot of research to select the many passages he used as examples, making the material interesting and digestible but he often got bogged own in too much explanation rather than making with the funny. Quite a few of his comments tickled my fancy but I noticed that not everyone in the room was laughing, such a sensitive topic clearly not being to everyone’s taste. It was interesting that he didn’t concentrate on the Catholic faith, spreading his coverage to take in various others albeit briefly.

After at least thirty minutes on religion, Tom eventually went into the drug stories. Not being a user myself I found it difficult to relate, have sympathy or find the humour in most of the tales. In the hands of a better performer, these stories would have brought the house down, but his delivery lacked the animation to bring them to life.

We eventually reached the science portion of the show, encompassing Quantum Physics that Tom had learnt during an aborted university course. He covered Schrodinger’s Cat and the Butterfly effect, but again Tom was bogged down in explanation so the laughs in this section were light on the ground. He tied up the loose ends at the end of the show by showing how religion, drugs and science were interrelated but after the empathy free drug section of the show, I didn’t particularly care.

Tom’s stage craft was very rough around the edges. He was very eloquent and confident yet he was rarely physical, instead remaining behind the safety of the microphone. If he had gotten a little more worked up in his attacking of religion, he would have been able to generate some passion in the audience and we would have been prepared to follow him. Instead his slightly meandering and cheerful performance merely had us stroking our chins in contemplation, quietly agreeing with him.

For a person to relate to Tom for the entirety of his show they would have to belong to a quite narrow demographic. This person would be a heavy drug user, would question religion and have a passing interest in university science. It was an interesting and thought provoking show that wasn’t quite the humour filled hour it could have been.