Comedy Review - Jai Cameron: Daddy
Images courtesy of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Word of warning: this review will be showering Jai Cameron with compliments, which is the only type of shower I intend to give him. In fact, it’s the only type he’ll accept. Trust me, I’ve asked.
The old show business adage to never work with animals or children is definitely not heeded by Jai Cameron. Above the winding staircases of fairytale-themed venue Storyville emerges a world-weary Jai Cameron on stage with a baby strapped to his chest. Was he unable to find a baby-sitter in time? Is this child labour? We soon learn it’s basically both.
Jai thankfully announces this alarming visual is a deliberate conceit. His 4-month-old baby (by the time of viewing; when you finish reading probably 5 months) Rory gurgles and garbles centre-stage as Jai struggles to manage fatherhood before our very eyes. Although the material may be carefully crafted and delivered, this baby has a mind of her own (she is after all a human).
Not fully conscious of the exploitation unfolding, Rory interrupts mid-way through most jokes to keep her father literally and metaphorically on his toes. No matter how much sooth-saying Jai does in-between punchlines, he eventually returns Rory back to her mother Makayla (and his wife) waiting attentively in the front-row.
No longer able to look at the cute baby, I now have to pay attention to what Jai is saying.
Through the lens of Jai Cameron, parenthood is replete with grim and messy moments that manifests in a cosmic shift in his own perspective. Jai divulges about carnal pleasures and the conception of Rory, claiming with equal parts levity and warning “pulling out is not an effective form of contraception.” Not only this, Jai is able to colourfully draw parenting similarities with his pet dog for whom he had to “milk his anus”, as well as the time he witnessed someone defecating an egg on stage.
However, Cameron parks his sardonic musings to open up about the raw, tender feelings that have emerged since becoming a father. A brief burst of vulnerability shines through as Jai rummages through papers to retrieve a letter:he explains this is a speech he will read for Rory’s 18th birthday. A conspicuous shift in tone reveals a soft sentimentality to Jai’s trademark bleakness. Reading in past tense, Jai is proud of Rory for being a champion for feminism, and explains how streams of tears flowed down his face when she was born. It turns out he was never a bad father after all.
In his fourth stand-up special to date, and hopefully many more to come, Jai creates a wholly unique framework of comedy that contains a masterful control of structure and tone, as well as a hilarious and self-deprecating editorial of his own life.
5 stars
Daddy is showing at the 2022 Melbourne International Comedy Festival between the 30th of March and the 10th of April. For tickets and more info, click here.