Joel Creasey: Poser (MICF)

Everyone inside is safe. Anyone outside is fucked. That’s the Joel Creasey guarantee. You’ve bought the ticket, fed the Ego and you now reside in the warm lee of his shade storm (though if “the fat Veronica” had shown up it might have been a hard promise to keep).

But, really, that’s just not true.

Creasey dishes up some (glorious) dirt from his encounters with the celebrity set and takes a few cheeky swipes at the same, but the only person he really puts on the chopping block is himself. Creasey loves attention, and he doesn’t really care if it’s negative, positive, or even if you spell his name right.

His delight at discovering his first fake news stories (did you know Chrissie Swan is having Creasey’s baby!?), developing a bit of a crush on the hunk that leaked his nude photo, accidentally #ing his way into a gay, right wing dinner party; Creasey has a wealth of should-be/would-be embarrassing tales that he reveals with pure, puckish glee, like a friend shamelessly spilling all the gritty deets of their debauched weekend. 

All you can do is cackle and groan, “No. You. Did. Not.” But he is also deeply, winningly sincere, able to steer the show from a mortifying orgy into a touching anecdote about working with his departed heroes Joan Rivers and Carrie Fisher, and then back out to a fling in Amsterdam without ever feeling forced or fake.

Poser is a perfect balance of conceit and self-effacement, delivered with undeniable wit and talent. Creasey skewers his own vanity even as he revels in it. He told The Music in an interview recently, "I am ridiculous. But also incredibly fabulous." That is absolutely true.

Joel Creasey presents Poser, till Apr 23 at Max Watt's, part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.