Ash Flanders
14 February 2014
Hares and Hyenas
to 22 February
facebook.com
What do you do if you're scared you won't get enough Valentine's Day attention? Ash Flanders invited a bookshop full of friends, relatives and strangers to spend the evening with him to avoid seeming needy.
After the overflowing audience love of his first solo show, Negative Energy Inc, he got the gang (musician Dave Barklay and director Stephen Nicolazzo) back together to make a show for Adelaide's Feast festival last year. The result was Special Victim and Melbourne finally gets to cut that special love heart into their flesh this and next weekend at the ever-lovely Hares and Hyeneas bookshop in Fitzroy.
While Negative Energy Inc was about coping with a career that wasn't swimming in the big pool, things have changed for our Ash, but that hasn't changed his attitude or his obsession with special victims: those of the Law and Order kind and those who bring it on themselves.
It's not as revelatory as his first show, but there are still songs, wigs and stories about life with Heather (mum) and Daniel (partner) – and there are trips to Geelong and Adelaide that are as frightening as trips to Geelong and Adelaide can be.
And it is Ash, so it's fucking hilarious.
And he wears a white, be-sparkled jump suit and stilettos. What more do you need to know? Apart from it may be his last performance before being Hedda Gabbler at Belvoir Street in June.
