Common because it now could be for well-loved figures to convey their life tales, gossip and opinions to the touring stage, one seldom errors these “An viewers with …” occasions for precise standup comedy. So it’s caps doffed to film-maker John Waters, a lot of whose 90-minute Barbican look is comedy in all however identify. It finds the so-called “sultan of sleaze” weighing in on woke tradition, cracking sensible about Covid, and imagining the methods he may but, aged 76, reinvent himself. Given that he's presenting it twice in a single night time, this present is a motor-mouthed and on-point efficiency to place many knowledgeable standup to disgrace.
Admittedly, there are extra smiles than laughs – unsurprisingly, given Waters claims to hate jokes. What we get as an alternative is perspective. Here's a profession provocateur with finite respect for the sensitivities of our culture-wars second. There’s no sacred cow he received’t prod (“I want Greta Thunberg would run off with Barron Trump”), no infraction of fine style he received’t relish. He could fear he’s turning right into a reactionary, however solely as a pretext for some bull-in-china-shop (and never remotely constant) rumination on gender fluidity, trendy relationship and “respectable gays”. (“We’re weakening the pervert model!”)
There isn't a hazard of Waters’ model weakening: he comes throughout as ever-mindful of it, crowing about current appearances in advert campaigns, hit TV reveals and halls of fame. Self-congratulation is constructed into occasions like these, thoughts you – and Waters wears his frivolously. The second half is given over to a listing of his movies, with beneficiant anecdotes about his collaborators – together with the not too long ago deceased proprietor of the singing anus in Pink Flamingos.
You may discern, behind the slick anecdotage, a heartfelt dedication to delinquency – see his paean within the post-show chat to a 2018 film about ladies masturbating to 9/11. And remorse, too, at a local weather that makes his outre early work really feel extra confrontational in the present day than when it was first made. However of regrets, Waters has only a few. This vigorous present is way extra professional than anti, a celebration of the values – trashiness, twistedness and gleeful transgression – that made his identify.
John Waters’ debut novel, Liarmouth, is out now
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