Agile, Drunk and Topical 
  By Enzo Presley - InPress Magazine

[Hey, while you're reading this, listen to an mp3 excerpt from one of the Perculators' shows?]

Something bizarre this way comes. Something loud and topical. Something hilarious. Something passionate and angry and unafraid, with guest comedians, live bands, wrestling masks, at least one dominatrix and go-go dancers.

Two plus hours of comedy, good music and belly laugh fun.

Something.

What, exactly, I have no idea. But that's a good thing.

  The show is called Agile, Mobile, Hostile. Its ringleader is The Perculator; a bloated, ex-wrestler. His cast is: his side-kick Laurie the Button Man, Axl the Spruiker from Hell, a superhero called Captain Perspective (who's power, apparently, is he's the one American in the world with a sense of perspective), the Mystery Poet, Ms Velvet Black the (real life) Dominatrix, and enough music to shake a sweaty armpit at.

The show aims not just to be funny, but to say things. Loud, drunken points of humanity about us as a people as well as individuals.

"I'm starting a national campaign to shout BOO whenever you see Keri Packer, you know, just in case his heart's still a little wonky!" the Perculator tells me. Over a few beers, he wonders aloud how Gavin Wood manages to still be on TV even though he's been dead for the past 15 years, and says some nasty things about Phil Ruddock that involve a jackhammer, a set of handcuffs, satanic sex rituals, Niki Webster's mother, and a cat called Fluffy that he saw on a non-existent video.

One gets the idea he comes out swinging.

"Let them sue," he insists. "My five legged blue heeler called Wombat is worth more than everything I own. All I have is my Perculator Pannelvan and my costume. They'd have to sue for me! I'm looking forward to it. Being taken back to Eddie McGuire's place screaming BROADY'S THAT WAY, FAKER! WHAT THE HELL ARE WE DOING IN TOORAK!?"

"I mean, it's a sterile world we live in. Someone has to play the human!" he says. "Let's face it, what sort of world is it where a dead rock star's family would rather convince us he committed suicide than went out in a kinky drug and booze sex experiment involving a prostitute and Kim Wilson?"

He then asks me if I like his wrestling outfit. "What is it?" I ask.

"I'm wearing my Meg Lees blow up doll." he says. "It's a GST thing."

Great! So I'm interviewing a 6"2' sex implement with the hair on the inside!

It's terrible." he grunts. "Old people keep spitting on me! I keep wanting to punch myself! Some bloke asked me to go on Jerry Springer. No topic, really. Just rock up and they'll build a show around it!"

"But do you tell jokes?" I ask. His cultural freakshow is meant to be performing at the comedy festival.

"Sure. How do you make a St.Kilda policeman loose his hard on? TAKE HIS GUN AWAY FROM HIM!" he yells. "No, really. I'm just angry. But for some reason, people find that hilarious..."

The show is based on his radio program from up in the Otway Rangers, and between the chaos, the monologues on us and our culture, guest comedians from throughout the comedy festival, the Human of the Week (cross dresses from Altona, ex-wrestlers and female parking officers), between band interviews that sound more like Norman Gunston has joined the Young Ones, there is live music.

No two shows are the same. The Perculator has the evocative Spoils, the Ramons-esque Monaros, Chris Tanner's Virus (Jazz), and Smoke Machine (garage), to name but a few on the bill.

"But what do you do? You know, out of your uniform?"

"What do you mean?" he says to me as though I'm an alien.

"It's a great show," says Laurie Savage, the Perculator's side kick. I had no idea he was even there, he can be so quiet. He is small, and has a colostomy bag and is the perfect foil to the big man's volume. "Two hours of comedy and music followed by free entry to the Laundry nightclub until 3am, all for $13/$10."

"Put a sock in it, button man!" the Perculator says from somewhere under his third chin. "Right now," he tells me, "we're working on a script for the second show, Reservoir Dogs, starring the Liberal party. And we've still got to track down that bloke who invented the bra strap for an interview. The bastard!"

And so on.

See the poster for Agile, Mobile, Hostile