“What’re you gonna do?” drawls Buttle into the microphone, a thick North Carolina accent elongating her vowels and drenching her consonants in molasses. “Use words as a weapon?”
Yes, that’s exactly what Mel Buttle is going to do in Up To The Pussy’s Bow. She’s going to slay you with acerbic social commentary and self-deprecating humour that all potential burglars will experience an existential crisis and contemplate whether they’re true marauders at heart.
In Up To The Pussy’s Bow, Buttle takes us on a rollicking anecdotal ride through her last year, from embarrassing internal ultrasounds to gun-crazy Americans holidaying in Hawaii to the story of her new adopted canine, Ruby and riffs in mockery of large-breed dog owners who are scared of her placid Bull Arab, before inviting us into her latest life drama, Buttle vs. Body Corporate.
Like all letter-based wars about dog ownership in municipal areas, Buttle ridicules the grammatically incorrect eponym of Nikki, the face of Body Corporate and the local council — “Shouldn’t it be Corporate Body?” quips Buttle midway through her tirade — and confesses that it’s pretty easy to circumvent dog ownership rules if your dog is a guide dog.
Buttle has a very satirical sense of humour, elevating the most banal of everyday experiences to moments of hilarity, not dissimilar to comedians such as Ed Byrne and Russell Howard. She can mock shambolic political decisions, such as the the handling of Asylum Seekers by the government, to know-it-all dog owners who want to let you know that when your dog shakes your paw, they’re marking you as their property.
What shines through is how the Brisbane comedian takes elements of her life, as a trained teacher and a comedian, and turns them into amusing commentary about deputy-principals who’ve swallowed thesauruses to reprimand students, to PE teachers who are not real teachers because, hey, they “wear a polo shirt no matter how formal the occasion”, and that everyone “fucking loves everything” in their eulogy.
A highlight of the show is when Buttle transforms the stage into a pop-up shop for her Gumtree obsession. It’s impressive not for only being entertaining, but for dancing that liminal line between performance and being a friend gossiping right next to you, in the audience.
There’s a reason that Mel Buttle is well-loved comedian, having earned awards such as Melbourne International Comedy Festival’s Director’s Choice Award in the past. Up To The Pussy’s Bow is a show worth seeing, not just for the chuckles, but for the sake of seeing an old friend
BY AVRILLE BYLOK-COLLARD
