John Robertson: A Nifty History Of Evil

In his scarlet suit, bug-eyed and bellowing, John Robertson cuts a devilish figure – the perfect host for an afternoon’s descent into depravity. Trying to keep up with his gallop through two millennia’s worth of villainy feels like clinging to a bullet train.

“Right!” the anarchic Aussie barks in lieu of “hello”, and a long, virtuosic intro spews forth. Genesis is retold with the help of a lunatic God and an inflatable whale – making as much sense on stage as it does in print. With a “ssh!” and a swipe, Robertson cues rapid-fire blackouts to let him snap in and out of surreal vignettes mocking the roots of morality. It moves at a gruelling pace and, come September, his tech will be a wreck.

Robertson paints characters from history and scripture as cartoon deviants and psychos. To him, Adam and Eve are boring. He prefers Adam’s first wife, Lilith, from an insane work of biblical apocrypha. Sure, she’s a flying baby-killer, but next to Eve, that scapegoat for original sin, she’s also a feminist icon. Later, swaggering, priapic Byron becomes an example of how the rich trample all in their path, while Robertson finds a kindred spirit in the Marquis de Sade: a pervert with real imagination.

Amid the dizzying tangents these spawn are snatches of lucidity. Rasputin gives way to a scathing comment on Russian homophobia, while Urbain Grandier, the French priest undone by his libido, becomes a cautionary tale for Russell Brand. But suddenly the next scene crashes in with “and now…”, creating a sense that sheer momentum masks unfinished ideas.

In the Buddhist creation story Robertson invokes at the top, order emerges out of chaos. There’s no such miracle for A Nifty History, but it's undeniably entertaining.