by ***1/2 (out of 5)
You might know Mish Wittrup from her work on camera with sketch group Aunty Donna, or from her best newcomer-nominated show in Melbourne two years ago. In between then and now, however, she fell upon hard times economically and found herself looking for any sort of side job to pay the bills. When Wittrup did eventually land a job, she feared it might suck all the funny out of her. Thank God for Greek mythological gods, then.
Wittrup might see a bit of herself in the stories of one particular mythic creature, half-beast, half-woman, who winds up scorned and hiding in isolation in a cave. That’s not the path she wants for herself, even if the fan art might portray her as sexy enough to fit in with the burlesque acts that show their boobs in The Butterfly Club. Wittrup doesn’t need to show any skin. But she does take perhaps a bit too much time getting to the juicy parts of her story. There’s also a tangential riff about a certain celebrity who’s good with animals but built for TV, that, while funny enough, misses a grander opportunity to direct her scorn at another infamous actor seen in one of her slides who actually fits into her mythic retelling. In the end, though, Wittrup doesn’t want to fade away to the point where we do indeed act like she’s not here. This is a starting point. But she might want to update her resume accordingly.
