Tommy Dassalo - Pipsqueak : Melbourne Comedy Festival

Review by Sean Lynch

The Acacia Room at the Victoria Hotel is fast becoming a hub for quality narrative based comedians. Last year, the very same room played host to Michael Chamberlain who delivered one of the tightest shows I'd seen in years.

This time around, the Acacia Room welcomes one of the co-hosts of The Little Dum Dum Club podcast, Tommy Dassalo, and he continues the rooms fine history with the wonderfully constructed show Pipsqueak .

As the story goes, last year, Tommy Dassalo's parents sold his childhood home. Pipsqueak is about the long, crazy week that he spent packing up 15 years of memories.

Join him as he goes to Bali with his parents, finds love over Skype, chases rats out of his house and beats cancer.

Narrative comedy is a tough skill to master, too many jokes result in a break of rhythm, not enough and it's simply a lame story. Thankfully Dassalo has honed his stage persona over several years and it shows. His ability to manouvre is truly impressive, he displays a confidence and dominance that lulls you into hanging onto every single word.

Sure, it helps that his story is one of triumph over adversity (and could quite easily be exploited by Today Tonight... and probably will), but an interesting story is an interesting story.

There are plenty of pop culture references thrown in for the kiddies (I will laugh at any comedian who throws in the phrase "and I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids!"), but more importantly Pipsqueak is a show that oozes heart and subdued emotion.

Anyone with kids should definitely check this show out, as I have a feeling there won't be a dry eye in the house.

SEE IT IF YOU'RE A FAN OF : The Little Dum Dum Club, Michael Chamberlain.