Long-time fixtures of the Australian comedy scene the Scared Weird Little Guys are this year telling A Tale of Two Scaredies: a history of John and Rusty that starts at the beginning and goes right up until the present day.

A Tale of Two Scaredies is likely to satisfy both newcomers to the Scaredies who will get an enjoyable potted history of the band, and old-timers like myself who will be ensconced in a nostalgic glow by references to late 80s/early 90s musical comedy groups like Corky and the Juice Pigs and Doug Anthony All Stars.

John and Rusty’s decades of musical and comedy experience really shine through, especially in the segment ‘Stump the Scaredies’ – where audience members suggest two songs and the guys must play the music of one while singing the lyrics of the other. Even if you’ve seen this many times before, it’s still gob-smacking to witness John and Rusty get some bizarre combination of suggestions and launch, utterly unrehearsed, into a near-perfect rendition complete with two-part harmony. Their teamwork and improvisational skills are phenomenal.

I did find some of their rehearsed songs to be less inspired. If you follow a lot of musical comedy, you also may find the concepts behind these to be too familiar to be funny anymore. And you will need a working knowledge of pop culture to really get the Scaredies – a parody song, after all, is only funny when you know the original.

But it’s great to see the guys still rocking out, in their extremely silly way. Their act is fun, musically accomplished and has all the tightness a 20-year partnership should. Excellent stuff.