London comedian and long-term FRINGE WORLD performer Paul Savage brought new show Comic, Relieved for its Australian debut this season. A collection of vignettes mostly connected via charity work, overseas travel, or both, these tales demonstrated Savage’s innate ability to cut directly to the heart of a story whilst also being skilled in subsequently adding the scenic route to get there.

Savage extolled the virtues of learning foreign languages, especially when being bullied in Urdu amongst the West Midlands education system. He also made the realisation that his high school Spanish left a lot to be desired in the rougher parts of Bolivia, where taxi rides often felt like a kidnapping, and cocaine was almost cheaper than dirt.

Observations followed about diversity demographics in England’s whitest counties, a hyper fixation on Thomas the Tank Engine and its plot alignment with Orwell’s 1984, and the endless loop of infotech security questions that go nowhere when you do not have access to a phone.

Two key stories in the mix stood out this afternoon – the first when Savage did a favour for an acquaintance that led to multiple police roadblocks around a British city purposefully not identified, and a second where the performer was carjacked in South Africa. This latter situation led to Savage assessing which of his family members could handle that news – if there was a through line to the entire set, it might have been what one can handle without falling apart. 

There was the distinct sense that this material was still being stress tested by Savage during this run, with some portions fully formed already, while others were still works in progress. His rapid-fire patter and occasional unvarnished segues took some getting used to, but the audience caught up with the performer soon enough.