The Pun

Wendy Little: Limited Sedition

By Brianna Summers ⋅ April 27, 2006 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

Sedition is a topic ripe for comic exploitation. What’s not funny about lengthy and complex legislation designed to curtail our freedom of expression? It’s got ‘comedy gold’ stamped all over it in red bureaucratic ink. Well, Wendy Little certainly thinks so.

In her one-woman show Limited Sedition, Little bounds around a cluttered stage filled with props and costumes as she attempts to bring the Seven Acts of Sedition to life. She forecasts the impact of the new laws, before detailing how best to break them in public, and preferably while wearing a silly outfit. She even cracks out an overhead projector and subjects the audience to a PowerPoint presentation of ‘Sedition for Dummies’.

Although the show stumbled at times (Audio snippets weren’t always on cue, and Little seemed occasionally under-rehearsed.) Limited Sedition’s content is timely and wickedly rebellious. Her heart is definitely in the right place, even if her props aren’t.

As a result of the sedition amendment, Australian comics may find themselves hamstrung in their attempts to hang shit on the state. Comedians are apparently no longer allowed to sing about Alexander Downer smearing mayonnaise all over his body and letting his constituents lick it off. But this is exactly what Little does. Slagging-off ASIO and humorously unAustralian lyrics for our national anthem might also attract unwanted attention from Canberra.

Yes, Little may have employed tenuous segues to include her earlier material; yes, she accidentally dropped her plectrum inside her guitar, but she is refreshingly frank, passionate and well-informed.