Tim and Eric
Enmore Theatre
Sydney, Australia
January 15, 2020
For the uninitiated, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, “Tim & Eric” is a comedy duo that has garnered a cult following through the shows they have created on the Adult Swim network. Having honed their craft since the mid-nineties, they have evolved from cartoons and short films via a website that displayed their talents to eventually scoring a TV show with the help of Bob Odenkirk.
The red threat of their oeuvre is the idiosyncratic grotesqueness of their approach to comedy, the common denominators of which are an exaggerated lack of fashion sense, off timing for comedic effect and an overall tackiness that is amplified through the highlighting of stereotypes the characters they portray embody to substitute real characteristics.
Given the aforementioned, one was wondering what a live incarnation could look like and if it would actually work when the “Tim and Eric 2020 Mandatory Attendance Tour” was announced. A sentiment similar when Monty Python announced that they were going to take their show on the road.
It was refreshing to see that both Tim and Eric bring a vaudevillian style to the stage that made the rendition of their skits very enjoyable, specifically if, like in my case, you are not familiar with the TV versions.
Apart from spoof and goofs from their shows, both Tim and Eric carried the evening and made it immensely enjoyable when they went off script and relied on their improvisation skills, interacting with the audience and adding an additional dimension to their characters and performance.
Part expertly execute ode to nonsense, part fan-appreciation event, the evening was a beautifully bizarre, the duo showed in the third dimension that there is much more to them than their recorded incarnations would have you think.
