“Baby boomers say you’re not a real comic,” declares James Mustapic (Billy T nominee 2019) at the outset of The Blair Witch Projector at BATS’ Heyday Dome. This observation relates to the modern day reliance on hi-tech, something routinely scorned by the aforementioned boomers.  

Therefore, despite the title, we are promised a show featuring nothing technologically quirky, with no trendy videos for this “spookiest night of your life.” Though onstage we can see a mic, a laptop, and a screen. Hmmm…

And our suspicions are justified, though in a way that doesn’t have us annoyed at Mustapic’s disclaimer. Mustapic suffers from repressed memories, you see, and these won’t let him alone. That they surface, and that their reappearance in our hapless hero’s life and threaten to spoil his show is technologically achieved, is one of this show’s delights.

Self-deprecation is probably the surest route to success for a stand-up comic. Mustapic’s demonstrations of this are masterful. There are also targets outside himself – gay stereotypes, politicians, programmes such as Sensing Murder and Shortland Street, and media like The Spinoff.

Among several life-enhancing facts, we learn that gays don’t like dogs, the uses for pawpaw ointment, and what happens when you make love to someone who looks like you.

There are two ways to treat your points of difference when you’re performing. You can brazen it out and thus erect a carapace of hard humour; or you can be self-revelatory in ways that endear you to your audience.

Hats off to Mustapic for choosing the latter route and providing his audience with an hour of genuine amusement with no hint of defensiveness or bravado. 

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