Tom Walker: Bee Boo (MICF)

One man's lunatic is another man's visionary, and Tom Walker certainly fits both those descriptions.

This rubber-faced jester is something of a comedic idiot savant. His unique, certifiably batshit brand of creepy, crude, anarchic clowning should be too tasteless and inane to work. Yet somehow, Walker has managed to craft something inexplicably engaging out of bits of cardboard, a suitcase full of baby dolls and a thoroughly indecent amount of mime sex.

The secret of this success is surely found in the sheer strength of commitment Walker brings to his performance, although for some, this might well be the thing that puts them off this show. Every fibre of his elastic-limbed body is focused with manic levels of intensity. With crazed eyes and an unnerving, buck-toothed grin, Walker delivers a scattershot of bizarre vignettes, peppered liberally with wince-inducing audience participation. Very little makes sense, but that's clearly by design.

Equally intentional is the shambolic, hair-brained energy that saturates every moment of Bee Boo - all of this cartwheeling chaos is carefully calculated. At the top of the show, Walker announces that during the production's first season at the Adelaide Fringe, there were 18 walk outs. In fact, he displays the tally proudly on the wall. The message is clear - if you're offended or baffled by his aesthetic, you're obviously not who it's intended for.

Despite that apparent throwdown to comedy conservatives, Walker knows how to wrangle a crowd, deftly coercing his audience to do his bidding, often without uttering a word. This nimble control reveals a keen understanding of group dynamics; Walker conducts his punters as skilfully as a maestro in front of an orchestra.

For those who might dismiss this show as needlessly weird or anti-comic, it's worth noting that there is plenty of evidence that Walker is conventionally talented, most notably as a cast member of the Australian franchise of Whose Line Is It Anyway? Like any great exponent of the avant-garde, an artist must first master the basics before leapfrogging them altogether, and Walker has proven with his talent for improv, that he has earned his stripes when it comes to more traditional modes of comedy.

But it's not Walker's preference for the perverse over the predictable that makes Bee Boo such a worthy addition to this year's MICF bill, nor his television credentials. This show is an astonishingly original piece of comedy unlike anything else on offer, and it could well prove an important disruptor to the status quo of Australian stand-up. Walker panders to no one, and while his balls-out slapstick may only appeal to certain connoisseurs, it's precisely this outsider, experimental quality that gives Bee Boo its power.

This kind of comedy will never be roundly popular because it defies any reassuring categorisation. Is it an absurdist sketch, a study of clownish extremism, or a psychological test? Perhaps it's all these things, but its most divisive quality is how this show engages with its audience. Boundaries are bulldozed, and comfort zones are well and truly invaded. For many, this will be a total deal breaker, but those willing to brave the spotlight with Walker will find it utterly liberating. It may be insistently odd, it may be challenging, but one thing is indisputable - this is a night of comedy you won't easily forget.

Tom Walker presents Bee Boo til 23 Apr at Victoria Hotel, part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.