Melbourne Reviews

Sneer all you like about celebrity goss but there’s something fascinating about peeping ‘behind the scenes’ of a relationship.

There’s nothing backstage about the subject matter of Anne Edmonds’ and Lloyd Langford’s joint show, which literally puts their real-life liaison on centre stage and challenges the audience to #AskUsAnything.

Who knows if their stories are fact or phony? they work them so well together, I am laughing too much to care.

Their love life is a rolling theme, of course – their solo work centres strongly on sex, so why would a collaboration be any different? – but the frank, clinical yet affectionate way it’s referenced is engaging. Edmonds has always been fearless in her treatment of taboo subjects and somehow manages to shock with unsubtle honesty while retaining a vulnerable sensitivity. Langford is master of finding a new perspective and hurtles off-tangent with style.

Much is made of their contrasting personalities: Edmonds plays up the manic, debauched exuberance that was encapsulated in her character Helen Bidou (Get Krack!n; Enter The Spinnaker Lounge), while Langford maintains the monotone, languid deadpan that is only heightened by his soft Welsh drawl. She plays cruel queen to his loyal fool.

They open the show together, chat about life in lockdown (how many couples start life confined to a Brunswick apartment?), then separate for a spot of single stand-up, before coming together at the end to answer questions, filed online beforehand via the inevitable QR code. It’s casual and conversational and quite endearing, as well as damn funny.

How much is real and how much rehearsed is irrelevant – they riff off each other so well that the line between scripted and spontaneous seems fluid and unforced.

Who needs to be a fly on the wall of this pair when you can simply buy a ticket to their show?