OBSERVER: Purple is the Gayest Colour
Making her debut appearance at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival from across the ditch, Alayne Dick’s Purple is the Gayest Colour is an energetic hour of lesbian levity and gay abandon.
From growing up in rural New Zealand — though you wouldn’t pick it with her accent — to her day job among the bookshelves and preschool story times in a library, Dick entertains with a seamless flow of personal stories, sharp observations and colourful encounters.
Performed at Tasma Terrace in Parliament Place — a superb 19th-century Victorian Italianate building with loads of exterior character but a heartless and awkwardly quiet interior — the setting gave a slight sense of foreboding.
Dick performed in one of various rooms, a small and austere space that was instantly transformed with her presence.
Vibrant, colourful, witty, self-deprecating, bluntly honest, cheeky, irreverent and clever best describes Dick’s routine.
Naturally, the show is very much about her experiences as a proud and loud lesbian — and, of course, the irony of her surname. She lets fly with a barrage of ‘dick’ jokes, gleefully mocking how reviewers describe her with lines like the entendred, “Dick – always disappointing.” But that couldn’t be further from the truth – Alayne Dick does not disappoint.
Her show is packed with fun games, tales of creepy kids, encounters with ‘enemy customers’, and cheeky reflections on identity, queerness and small-town life.
With a bold stage presence and a quick-fire wit, Dick delivers a performance that is as heartfelt as it is hilarious.
Performance dates: 7.25pm Mon – Sun until April 6.
Where: Tasma Terrace, 4 Parliament Place, East Melbourne.
Cost: $20.41 to $27.60
Bookings: entercloser.com/shows/1086514757889
Review by Beth Klein