Fox J. Michaels is a baby faced loser working as a paper-pusher on the top floor of a Collins Street finance firm. He likes toys, Star Wars and his Mum’s housekeeping skills. Gordon Gatto is the head honcho of the company, a business genius with Richard Branson’s business nous, Donald Trump’s front and Gordon Ramsay’s character traits. Then one day, the two men meet and both of their lives change forever as Gatto takes his young employee under his wing.

As the young dweeb Fox is drawn into Gatto’s lair, the audience witnesses the brutality and the psychological highs and lows Fox experiences at the hands of his master. Or is it the other way around? Or, chillingly, are they both just products of a greedy, soulless industry?

An excellent two-man play, featuring outstanding performances from Ged Cogley (Gordon Gatto) and Jamie McCarney (Fox Michaels), Collins Street has enough laughs and brazenly over-the-top, physical descriptions of oral sex to cement a place in the comedy festival. But some of the scenes were so intense that I imagine the show could easily be performed outside the sometimes limiting framework of a comedy festival (including a pub venue that’s hardly set up to stage a serious play). A great little show with better acting than you’ll see in most festival shows.

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