Above (l to r):  James Schloeffel, Mark Humphries and Charles Firth starred in ‘SPIN-Election 2022’

This year’s Sydney Comedy Festival is well placed in time for a decent chunk of federal election satire. And who better to dish it out in their familiar, inimitable fashion than Charles Firth (Chaser), James Schloeffel (The Shovel) and Mark Humphries (ABC’s 7.30) in SPIN-Election 2022.

The tone was set on entry to the shiny, refurbished Enmore Theatre with a roll of souvenir Scomo head print toilet paper on every seat. These were popular for punters as a take-home item to be able to deal with both bad curry nights and all pre-election emissions from party spin doctors to come.

This comedy trio collab and carefully-selected audience participation guests worked through cooking demonstrations (just how do the busy Jenny and Scomo whip up those curry dishes?), conference-style workshop slides, fake ads telling the real truth, hectic polling graph jokes as well as profiling of businesses and political party members.

One moment in this show we were moving through marginal seats and the faux pas of party punters holding on to them. The next we were in a curry making pressure test, Master Chef style. It was a clever, fun ride.

Mark Humphries was a master chameleon of smarm, entering early on as a campaigning member plunging into a new seat, a game show host questioning the status quo and even a cameo as a fallen, scandal-ridden religious leader whose richly engaging church even our illustrious federal leader could not resist visiting in past years.

The typical sardonic, risque rant from this trio waged witty war on everything election promise and political personality related. In this multimedia attack on all things election, especially the omnipresent, tricky spin on truth, not even media behaviour was a sacred untouched topic, and rightfully so. We have a considerable road ahead led by a dubious them.

During this lecture on how to recognise the elements of spin, evasion or cullinary deception by a federal leader, this country’s whiter shade of political pale, aka One Nation, did not escape a mention. Neither did the inimitable, self-caricature characters of Peter Dutton or Barnaby Joyce.

Also present of course as a positive force in the humour was the national shortage of RAT tests, holidays in Hawaii and any assorted variants of pandemic pun that could still succeed a little distance from the unmasked crowd.

The highlight for me was chasing the marginal seats across the nation with true tally room verve. In this show we were not counting votes, rather Charles Firth and James Schloeffel uncovered extraordinary spin in historic, illogical and misinformed candid candidate quotes.

These came from a formidable rogues gallery of campaigners, with larger than life personalties and almost-scandals cleverly summarised  in neat presentation slides introducing the new, old and carefully recycled politicians holding the 2022 result in the balance.

This segment and the entire offering was a great spin on the election circus to come. It was quite the satirical trail, much needed to put the election back in its box, taking those spin-doctor, truth-stretching representative curiosities with it.

This was a well-paced three-hander of a show, giving politics a real constituent part of the  Sydney Comedy Festival, arguably back where it belongs, namely in the line of fire of comedians, mimics and a bog-roll treasuring public developing a stronger immunity to SPIN.