Aware of the approach of Cyclone Cook, the ever affable Jon Bennett thanks us for coming and – given the prognosis for the morrow (today) – suggests this might be the last show we’ll ever see at BATS. Premature predictions of termination turn out to central to My Dad’s Deaths (part of the Jon Bennett Trilogy which began on Tuesday with Pretending Things Are a Cock and ends tonight with Fire in the Meth Lab).

A gifted storyteller, no matter what you think of his subject matter, Jon (who offers a running gag about the missing ‘h’) starts the litany of mishaps befalling his father before he (Jon) was born; when his mother was heavily pregnant with him. As graphic as it is suspect, the first version anyway, it sets the tone for a riveting 80 minutes.  

Because Bennett’s shows are always about more than the title suggests, we are treated to classic insights to the abiding dynamics of a growing lad’s relationship with his dad. In this case, given their rural South Australian upbringing, Ray Bennett played multiple roles in Jon’s life, occupying his son’s space every day of the week and making the urge to escape inevitable.

The irony is his dad wanted Jon to be a writer, like Banjo (Waltzing Matilda’, ‘The Man from Snowy River’, ‘Clancy of the Overflow’) Paterson and, as a yarn-spinner, he shapes up just fine, albeit in performance and autobiographical mode. Quite why he rants on about Paterson’s bush poems not rhyming escapes me, because they do.*

En route the various ‘Dead Dad’ incidents are intercut with ‘Disappointing Dad’ anecdotes and a series of Facebook postings from a Christie Sullivan. And we find out why there is a child-sized bunny suit hanging on stage, and a log of wood …

The pig hunting episode on Kangaroo Island is a high point on a number of levels (that’s not as oxymoronic as it looks). And because he grows up in the course of all these experiences, Jon is not averse to offering a self-aware resolution – somewhat more profound that the moral with which his dad tags his own yarn about the crop dusting pilot and the possum (which are beloved in Australia).

Conclusion: pretty well anything Jon Bennett does is likely to be entertaining, so risk it. (Except maybe tonight … let’s see how the weather behaves.) He knows his craft – maybe he read this at an early age:

*From ‘Behind the Scenes’ by Banjo Paterson (1893)

For though the actor at his best
Is, like a poet, born not made,
He still must study with a zest
And practise hard to learn his trade.

So, whether on the actor’s form
The stately robes of Hamlet sit,
Or as Macbeth he rave and storm,
Or plays burlesque to please the pit,

‘Tis each and all a work of art,
That constant care and practice means–
The actor who creates a part
Has done his work behind the scenes. 

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

Our performer is wandering about BATS’ Propeller Stage before the show. “I’m out here because it’s boring backstage,” Jon Bennett informs early arriving audience. 

He has turned his obsession with his Australian pig farming father into an energetic, engaging work. “Never let facts get in the way of a good story,” might have been his watchword. Again and again he recounts events, several of which involve the apparent death of his father, only to resurrect him with a punchline. 

“Disappointing Dad” – the title of cleverly interspersed slides – seems to be a theme. The juxtaposition of a would-be comedian son and an unusually conservative father with melodramatic tendencies provides a goldmine of material – a father who’s never been out of Australia, who censures his son for swearing and who chokes on a [spoiler averted].

A Banjo Patterson bush recital is a high point – Bennett takes a stance on a log, dons a stereotypical cork trimmed hat, and then struggles to read the poem through the corks.   

He can’t resist a reference to his earlier work, Pretending Things are a Cock. By the time he mentions it, towards the end of the show, we’re primed to hear, and see, examples from his exhibition. I’m not sure if his disappointment with his father for not attending the opening is genuine, or tongue in cheek. “Everyone else is happily perusing the cocks,” he assures us.

It’s refreshing to see a show abo  ut someone’s dad, especially one that celebrates their differences.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer