Homo Pentecostus
With the ‘debate’ over a proposed religious discrimination bill before the federal parliament again, the arguments put forward by religious leaders once more appear less focused on enshrining the right to practice faith freely (fair) and more on the freedom to persecute LGBTQIA+ people and other groups also deemed ‘sinners’. For those of the Pentecostal faith, including Hillsong-attending former Prime Minister Scott Morrison – singled out by audience members in the sassy call and response opening sequence of Homo Pentecostus (the latest from Considerable Sexual License creator Joel Bray) that’s a very long sinners list. This list is mined for comedy gold in a hilarious sight gag corralled by equally charismatic co-star Peter Paltos. Wheeling out the sort of overhead projector that would be very familiar to anyone who went to high school in the ’80s or ’90s, he flicks out a comically long acetate sheet of tick boxes, proceeding to check off the various levels of mortal sins with a red sharpie. Perplexingly, if you enjoy yoga or Star Wars, you’re damned and should turn away from the downward dog Dark Side. All the while, Paltos’ voice, narrating these increasingly ludicrous no-nos, begins to distort demonically. As does his hand, straying from absent-minded dick doodles towards violent scratches in which Bray, caught in the projector’s hellfire glare on the vertical blinds lining the rear of the stage, gesticulates as if possessed, then baptised in a very suggestive eruption