Chat…Reality (TV)… Things ‘too funny’. These concepts or pastimes litter modern multimedia. TOO OLD FOR TV, written and performed by Brent Thorpe, and newly directed by Kevin Jackson, refreshingly reworks all three during the 2013 Sydney Fringe Festival.

Genuine anecdotes and classic gags are delivered fluently with detail and clarity. Extended stories blended with shorter humour gives a stand-up style which has grown into greater communication.

Thorpe’s observations are incisive, thought provoking and at times very touching. Scanning decades of life in Sydney, the show gives timely evidence that a gay lifestyle and identity dates bravely back to well before the last election, rally, current affairs show or phone hook-up app.

From such a standpoint, this comedy gives a soap opera slap to hackneyed politics, bitterness and self-pity. Historical images of a gay social life are inspiringly covered. Commentary on residential environments in Sydney’s suburbs is well-located. 

A decent documentary on social habit and live entertainments for all Sydneysiders since the seventies is included. Deliciously indecent tales based on friends, family and a once underground sexuality skirt shyly about no tricky issues.

A well paced, intelligent and suitably risque delivery ensures fluidity and allows plenty of evidence to be shared and to educate. Thorpe shows storytelling talent which could easily expand a narrower subject and time period into a single show.

The substantial fabulousness on offer in TOO OLD FOR TV engages and drags lots out of you. It will leave you commenting (virtually or otherwise) on your community, that of others, and of a diverse humanity, for some time afterwards.

The final performance of TOO OLD FOR TV is this upcoming Saturday, September 14, at the Lybrary,  formerly known as the Shannon Hotel, 87-91 Abercrombie Street, Chippendale.