Mark Lee Rally 2009
Drama Centre Theatre
Thursday

You wonder what it would have been like to be in the shoes of Mark Lee’s wife Catherine as she watched the performance.
The undoubted highlight of the 100-minute stand-up show was when the comedian regaled the audience with the long and torturous odyssey the couple underwent in their attempts to have a child.
After several years of trying, he got advice from friends who were proud fathers of broods of tykes.
One proposed that he lift his wife’s legs up after sex, another advocated flipping the legs over the head using the wall as a support, and yet a third advocated an alternative position.
The 40-year-old’s delivery was well-paced and he punctuated his storytelling with generous gesturing.
The segment played to his strengths as a comedian and the fact that the material was personal helped to create a strong connection with the audience.
He knew it was the best part of the show, which was why he saved it for last. It earned the biggest laughs of the night.
That sketch was also the best answer to the prickly question that he himself had asked in an earlier interview with Life!: Why pay to watch him when viewers can see him for free on TV?
It was an opportunity to witness him sharing his private life in a cheekily entertaining manner.
Alas, the rest of the evening was fairly ho-hum.
As promised, he took on government policies on issues ranging from language education to the certificate of entitlement for cars. However, the writing by stage and TV writers Soo Wei Seng and Boris Boo was not particularly sharp.
One could also have done without the constant reference to the political Lees and a lame attempt to milk some laughs by calling himself Performer Mark Lee or PM Lee.
He fared better when riffing on Ah Beng culture and how that is different from the way gangsters behave, including an amusing bit on swearing with hand gestures.
Drawing on recent headline-grabbers, he also took some barbed digs at veteran show host Marcus Chin’s tabloid-worthy relationship with his much younger female assistant as well as the recent brouhaha over lip-synching in The Little Nyonya musical.
The show marks Lee’s 20th year in showbusiness and serves as a reminder of how far he has come with his Ah Beng persona. But it will not have new fans rallying around him.
(ST)