Geraldine Quinn
Quinn is witty, and she can deliver a crotch-grabbingly funny line, but one wonders how the show would fare if it was stripped of its musical accoutrements
The singer/songwriter/comedian umbrella is currently experiencing a renaissance of sorts. Andrew Lawrence is a witty social leper with a fender. David O’Doherty is an adorable, self-effacing comic who sings about Tiger Woods and grey-area sexual assault. So how does Geraldine Quinn – a fulsome, grinning Aussie songstress – fit in with this melee of alternative melodious funny men?
Quite well. While her set doesn’t include the storytelling theatrics of O’Doherty’s, she knows how to spin a yarn. A ditty on how great things would be if Bowie was her Dad pleases the audience members who expected an hour devoted to Ziggy Stardust, and the crowd responds well to her ballad of ‘We’re all fucked, they’re all cunts, and no one cares’. Quinn tackles soap stars and terminal illness in the somewhat inspired ’Talkin’ ‘Bout My Cancerogeneration’, or something, but fails to maintain a steady level of lyrical inventiveness. All too often she appears to be stomping down a familiar path – a kind of cadence-driven musical humour as done by The Simpsons or Family Guy a hundred times over. Quinn is witty, and she can deliver a crotch-grabbingly funny line, but one wonders how the show would fare if it was stripped of its musical accoutrements.