★★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Rhino Room. 12 Mar 2025
AJ Lamarque is not your ordinary garden-variety comic. He is extraordinarily clever, witty, perceptive, and a gratuitous, smutty word or remark doesn’t get any airplay at all in his show (although he does use the word ‘penis’ once, but that surely doesn’t count!).
His show – A Beginner’s Guide to Gay Cruising – is his first foray into the Adelaide Fringe, but his season is preciously short. He is better known in the eastern states and has a successful eclectic career as a presenter, writer, producer and comedian. Word of mouth is king in comedy, and clearly the word is out as evidenced by the sold-out audience in the intimate Hell’s Kitchen in the Rhino Room.
Lamarque is an out and proud gay man, and early in his routine he lets us know that his show is not about gay men looking to ‘hook up’ in public places but is rather about going on an ocean cruise exclusively for gay men! He speaks from personal experience, but his narrative is less about the salacious activity one might assume happens when you get five-thousand gay men together in one location for nine days of partying, and more about how such an event can be therapeutic for someone who feels they are labelled ‘gay’ first, and anything else second.
It all sound rather serious, and it is, but Lamarque’s abundant skill is such that the audience never stops laughing. And it’s genuine laughter – it’s happy and appreciative laughter. He frequently makes a point that is potent at one level and then turns it into a killer oh-so-funny joke by contrasting it with something totally unexpected.
Along the way he is self-deprecating, but it’s purposeful. He puts himself down in the mildest of ways but uses it as a magnet to bring us back to the point he is making. Sometimes the point is sad, but every grey cloud, etc, etc and we still finish up laughing.
Lamarque’s brand of comedy is sophisticated, as is he. Lamarque is fun. Lamarque is the sort of comedian you want to see again, and again. He is charming, easy on the eye and has a flashing and infectious smile that fills the stage.
Kym Clayton
When: 12 to 15 Mar
Where: Rhino Room
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
