COMEDY CHART-TOPPER TAKING A SHOT AT THE POPS - Otago Daily Times

Fiona Scott-Norman
The Needle and the Damage Done
Reviewed by Nigel Benson Tuesday May 11
Otago Daily Times

“IT started with a kiss ….”
Actually, it didn’t really. That was just one of the worst song lyrics I could think of.

And it doesn’t even rate of the scale of The Needle and the Damage Done, Australian comedian Fiona Scott-Norman’s hilarious crime against music, which opened to a packed house at the Fortune Theatre last night.

It was like an evening in front of the devil’s jukebox. As the comic drolly observed: “There’s some really bad music out there – mesmerising, car-crash, can’t look away bad music.

The Needle and the Damage Done is a 90 minute romp, complete with slide show, record player and stand-up comedy, through themed top tens of the most tortuous music in history.

Fortune Theatre staff saw the show in Melbourne and persuaded Scott-Norman to bring it to Dunedin during her current five-month national tour of Australia.

Most of the material was gleaned over the past eight years during her Trash is my Life show on Melbourne radio station Triple J.

Nobody untalented is safe from Scott-Norman’s vinyl vitriol. The damned are divided into categories – thus we hear the 10 worst Australian records, the 10 worst Christian records and the 10 worst records your parents had sex to.

She reserves big doses of Borax for misguided celebrity releases. David Hasselhoff, Leonard Nimoy, Uri Geller, William Shatner, Barbara Cartland and Torvill & Dean all come in for a deservedly, torrid time.

Some of her funniest lines are at the expense of all-sister American 70’s band the Shaggs, who according to Scott-Norman “were protected by their father from outside influences like rhythm and tempo”.

An absolute MUST-SEE show if you are feeling insecure about your karaoke. Or need a reality check about popular culture over the past 40 years.

The Needle and the Damage Done is on at 8pm at the Fortune Theatre until Sunday.