Adelaide Fringe: Sam Simmons: Spaghetti For Breakfast

Sam Simmons’ fascination with pre-prepared meals continues! Previously he’s celebrated creamy alfredo microwave pasta and home taco kits, but this time he’s lauding tinned spaghetti on toast, and various other edibles including canned soup, Ferrero chocolates, beef stock cubes, and something described as a “giant fuck pancake.”

For the uninitiated, this is standard Simmons. His is not your garden variety comedy hour, and he gives the audience fair warning: “This show is 55 more minutes of me being a full-bore dickhead, and if that’s not for you, you can fffuuuuucccckkkk offffff!”

Meanwhile, the converted lap it up, revelling in the uninhibited silliness running riot on stage. Simmons plays his own straight man via a pre-recorded voiceover with which he regularly interacts. Of course, the net effect of this is that there is no straight man; he destroys leafy greens and snorkels in a bowl of cereal just because.

The nonsense is palpably divisive, and even we, long-term fans, began to wonder how long that fact alone could sustain Simmons’ show. Wonderfully, at that exact moment, his already meta narrative (d)evolved into an unexpected moment of self-examination that might have even helped the more bewildered audience members parse what they were witnessing. More importantly, it was very, very funny.

Sam Simmons: You either don’t get him, or you don’t. (That’s not a typo.)

Umbrella Revolution, Garden Of Unearthly Delights to 15 Mar