Negative Energy Inc.

Negative Energy Inc.

The title of Ash Flanders' new one man show, Negative Energy Inc., promises cynicism, sarcasm and black humour and, in the opening montage of botox disasters, celebrity disgraces and causes celebre,  sets us up for an evening of topical acerbity. 

Fairly quickly though, Flanders abandons the corporate narrative and launches into an entertaining, if somewhat rambling and unfocused, recounting of his upbringing as a Christian camp camper and the thinnest girl at fat camp to his meteoric rise to obscurity as a professional actor. 

It’s not the most sharply honed of routines but he’s charming, he’s beautiful and he can sing so it doesn’t really matter. 

Flanders will tell you himself how he was the star of Adam Cass’s I Love You Bro, but it’s equally true we haven’t seen much of him lately. 

Flanders was also one half of the Melbourne independent theatre company Sisters Grimm with Declan Green. It’s a bit baffling that Flanders hasn’t become better known that he is. He certainly deserves to be. 

I’m reminded of a young Reg Livermore when I see Flanders perform. Something about the sharpness of the wit if not the discipline of execution.