David Baddiel – My Family: Not The Sitcom

David Baddiel is a well known London comedian, TV presenter and celebrated author who is soon to embark on his very first Australian tour with a show titled, My Family: Not The Sitcom.

David Baddiel has never been too concerned with moral ethics and prefers truth in all it’s raw splendour. In fact one of his previous shows Fame: Not The Musical was not really about fame, but was in Baddiel’s words… “about the everyday mundane humiliations and the absurdity of being slightly more visible and than other people.”

Similarly, My Family: Not The Sitcom, is a show based, not on the fast character banter that we often find in sitcoms, but on true stories about Baddiel’s own family. Particularly his mum and dad. They say, “Don’t wash your dirty linen in public” which in Baddiel’s words means, “Don’t expose all your family secrets to the world.”

Why? Because you’ll open up a can of worms.

Yet that is precisely what Baddiel does with this show. “It’s a great big washing of my family’s dirty linen in public”, says Baddiel and then goes on to say that their stories are told in a “feel good, funny, un-judgemental way.” He explains it as a “celebration of the madness of my parents and of 70s parenting in general.”

According to Baddiel, “it’s an emotional show, particularly towards the end. I talk a lot about my mother becoming obsessed with golf, after she fell in love with a golfing memorabilia salesman. Lots of people afterwards want to tell me their family secrets, because even if no-one else has had a mum who eroticised golf, everyone has had some fucked up stuff in their childhood.”

Sep 15. Seymour Centre, Cnr City Rd & Cleveland Street, Chippendale. $65.90-$79.90+b.f. Tickets & Info: www.seymourcentre.com

By Renee Dallow