Comedy in the darker side of life

Comedic storyteller Jon Bennett lays bare the bizarre and sometimes sordid tale of his brother’s meth addiction and in doing so, finds humour in the dark.

In his show Fire in the Meth Lab, Bennett draws on his brother’s story.

‘‘It’s all about my older brother who is an addict and went to jail. I tell the story of how someone becomes an addict. The funny bits come when I talk about how siblings treat their younger siblings.’’

Bennett uses multi media to get his brother’s story across and he said the show is interactive. Bennett asks the audience, ‘‘what did you do to your sibling, or what did they do to you?’’

Bennett said sometimes, what people in the audience tell him is very, very funny and quite dark.’’

‘‘My favourite one was when there were two sisters in the audience and the older one spoke. She would pick on her younger sister and make her cry, then she would leave the room. A minute later she would walk back in and console her sister and say, why are you crying? Her sister would say, ‘you hit me’ and all that sort of stuff and her sister would say, ‘no, no, that wasn’t me, I’m the childlike princess from The Never Ending Story‘.’’

The girls’ sister was sitting next to her in the audience and realised for the first time that when she was little she had an imaginary friend called the childlike princess. Bennett said it was a crazy moment when the realisation happened.

‘‘It was her sister manipulating her so she wouldn’t get in trouble. It was nuts, but also a great story that stunned the audience.’’

Bennett said people share their ‘‘moments of glory too’’.

‘‘When you slowly manage to get your own back, payback – and I guess the ultimate payback is that he’s in jail and I’m touring around the world rubbing it in.’’

Fire in the Meth Lab

is coming to Palmerston North’s Dark Room on April 15 and 16.