Fiona Scott-Norman in The Needle and the Damage Done

REVIEWER – HELEN RENWICK

Fiona Scott-Norman promises us a romp through some of the worst music ever released and she delivers.

She admits to collecting “hard core musical kitsch” for some time and the resulting collection is the star of the show.

The aim is to find The Worst Ever Released Album inThe History of The World.  In order to make this Herculean task easier to bear, Scott-Norman has divided her collection into categories which include Christian music, racist songs and songs stars have released.

Brilliant one-liners punch their way between everything from a Cantonese version of Staying Alive and Leonard Nimoy’s ill-fated foray into music.

Scott-Norman is very funny. Her script is tightly packed with scathing comments delivered with such perfect timing that the audience is caught with laughter bursting out of them.

Listening to the winner of the section “Songs your parents had sex to”, director Paul McCarthy has created a contrasting scene, which was executed with perfect poise and wit. It was hilarious.

The show is well-structured, tight and intelligent. It is well-researched, which lifts it from a wallowing trip through a personal record collection into a complete performance. This is its crowning strength.

Scott-Norman is making a point. It is a social commentary at times laughing at nothing more than the wardrobe malfunctions of the 70’s but also looking at the darker side of our history.

A definition of art is that is shows us what we look at but do not see. This is what Scott-Norman is doing. As the audience taps their toes to a Dean Martin song, she encourages you to hear the blatant signs of date rape; not so much toe-tapping after that.

The racism in her picks from the 1950’s are unforgivable but the recently released Neo Nazi ‘hit’ is spine-chilling.  “Open your ears”, Scott-Norman seems to be saying, “Hear what you won’t listen to.”

If you could remember just one of Scott-Norman’s scathing one line gags, you would be the funniest person at the water cooler.

Fiona Scott-Norman in The Needle and the Damage Done is on @ Trades Hall, Carlton, for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival until Sunday 29th April.