Archibald Wheeler Whets His Whistle

Patrick Miller* of Vigilantelope fame (is fame the wrong word here? Whatever, they won a Golden Gibbo so that's a thing, right? Update: LIES! I lied to you! Sorry. The were nominated, not winning, but nom is still pretty fantastic) has been left to his own devices. The result is...astonishing. 


It starts off accessible enough with geriatric Archie (Patrick does the best old guy end-of-sentence whistle ever) singing about his tiresome wife, Mavis. Then it keeps going. Patrick transforms from Archie to Archie's son, (then to) Archie's grandson, (and) Archie's son's best mate (but don't forgot) Archie's grandson's best mate etc. etc. etc. I'm tired (but also flippin' enthralled) just watching. 


A testament to Patrick's clearly marvellous brain, the narrative somehow traverses through Fred Hollow's brother's surgery then an industrial freezer with a yak (or maybe llama, I forget), to a farcical The Castle-esque court room sequence, and finally, like any good comedy show, to a hospital for a self-embrace. Patrick deserves that hug, he is clearly giving it his all up there. 


I think that if Patrick could've some how cloned himself and played all the characters (well, he already does play them all...you know what I mean, play them all at once kind of thing, like at the same time standing next to each other) then he would've made his director's** life more sleep-based and less awake-always-doing-comedy-things-based. But they get around this 'there only being one of Pat in the world' problem pretty smoothly. But maybe someone should give him a TV show and lots of money to make CGI versions of himself. Yes? Hello? Producer willing to take risks are you out there?


This show about one of my favourite topics of all time: intergenerational male relationships. As such I was not only laughing at the silly but also wishing to squash Archie's face with my bare hands. Oh! Also! He plays really rad songs and is totes talented on the piano and with singing and dancing even a bit too. 


Archie is playing at Trades Hall at 7pm until 10 April. 




* Just to clarify, it's not this guy or this guy but this guy that I'm talking about. 
** PLUG PLUG PLUG PLUG! His director is Al Newstead of Al's Music Rant.