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Photo – Timothy Zeven

"Do you ever get the feeling that you're not a proper adult?" asks Lisa-Skye, after a particularly silly take on an 80s pop song about half way into her set. On stage, she cuts a dramatic figure, dressed in black with eye shadow, stockings and hair all in complimentary shades of green. Gloriously Gothy and alternative, she projects an attitude of giggling disdain for social expectation – but she's also recently turned thirty and is wondering aloud if there are adult responsibilities she's not living up to. 

Ladyboner sounds like an irreverent show mostly about sex. Which it is, but it is also a deeply personal show about the conflict of growing up. Lisa-Skye weighs up the pleasures of youth with the responsibilities you're supposed to ditch them for, pitting the things that make life exciting against the everyday travails which make you crave those things all the more. On the travail side work, family, suburban life and the freaks you meet on public transport feature heavily, on the bright side are sex and other fun things (mostly more sex).

This is Lisa-Skye's second comedy festival show, following from Lisa Skye Is Not Like Other Boys last year, and several appearances in shows at Fringe and Midsumma Festivals. While she still seems to be getting her head around the mechanics of doing a full length show, delivering material in marked segments and needing to regroup a bit between them, she is extremely funny.

At heart the show is confessional stand-up, although Lisa-Skye throws in a number of aids to jazz things up. There are a cappella ditties to the beat of a metronome and visual aids which somehow manage to be both cutesy and lewd. She is as comfortable referencing science as pop culture and more comfortable than most with discussing sexuality. She has a particular knack for pithy descriptions of sexual acts and draws many of her heartiest laughs with these.

The show also gives frank glimpses of her own personal life. She does not, perhaps, provide as much context as she needs to for some of this material, which can leave you too pre-occupied trying to get your head around her tangled personal arrangements to fully appreciate the jokes. Her extreme candour can at times be confronting – which is fine, you don't go to a show called Ladyboner expecting a night of family friendly knock knock jokes – but she does at times teeter on the brink of too much information. 

Her act does have a bit of growing up to do, in terms of balancing performance and personal exposé and getting the right mix of shock and quirk. For this show at least, however, the rough edges are in a way integral. Hopefully, wherever Lisa-Skye's future career takes her, she keeps that wayward spark which gives her the potential to be a striking and original voice in comedy.


Lisa-Skye's Crappy Club for Jerks presents
LADYBONER
Written and Performed by Lisa-Skye
Co-Written by Simon Chugg

Venue: The John Curtain Hotel - 29 Lygon St, Carlton (opp. Trades Hall)
Dates: 29 March - 21 April 2012
Times: Mon and Tues, Thur - Sat @ 7:45pm
Tickets: $12-$20 (Grp and Conc prices, Mon and Tues - cheap tix!)
Bookings: www.lisaskye.com.au, ticketmaster.com.au (Ph: 1300 660 013) or at the door