Nick White is not in the building. Well, he clearly is, but he’s currently pretending to be his alter ego, Carli Furplam, aka the dullest co-worker. She’s warming up for him and is super-keen, only she has put exactly one hour on the meter, is parked half an hour away because driving in the city is too stressful, and so she’s on a tight deadline to get the show going and get gone.
Her nervous stream of hair-tugging consciousness, replete with robotic “What’s your name and occupation?” crowd work, makes for a gently gigglish entry to this sophomore show from the architect-turned-TikTok star who racks up hundreds of thousands of views on each of his posts. She’ll be back, later on, in an aside that may or may not be a bit, because the relaxed and reliably likeable, handsomely moustachioed White makes a virtue of appearing as if everything is off the cuff. And that’s not easy to do, especially if you’re prone to social anxiety, a situation that White has harnessed to great effect in his delightfully silly show.
Rolling along amiably, much of his deftly delivered asides are aided by a well-judged eyebrow raise or a spot of imagined banter with the family pup. Teenage Dreams is a fun insight into his foundational years and the bridge into so-called adulthood, having recently settled in Melbourne.
There’s a fun bit about the cutest form of (accidental) self-harm imaginable, via a Malcolm in the Middle dream gone wrong that only gets more hilarious when his mum suggests an inexplicably daft cover story to explain away the injury at school. This far fetched faux pas only exacerbated the situation with his more boisterously nosy schoolmates. The less said about his artistic endeavours, including a nightmare-scape of malformed Michael Jackson sketches and fan art dedicated to America’s Next Top Model that channels the power of The Sims, the better.
A saucier wish fulfilment spot involving the Bondi Vet sets up a mic drop call-back. There’s a sassy sidestep into why September is the perfect time of year to visit New York, no matter what might have gone down in the fairly recent past, and one of the best jokes of the night belongs to White’s dad, on the poolside hint that tipped him off his son might be gay. A whip-smart comeback to a prodding dentist who enquired if the steadfastly single White grinds his teeth in his sleep brings a bit more bite to what is a very sweet night.
Borrowing a trick from Carly’s micromanaged book, all of this is assisted by a point-and-click PowerPoint slideshow that draws a lot of guffaws from its marvellously deployed mundanity. A dab hand at accent work with amusingly Australian specificity, White’s comedy is wryly observant without being too snarky, all too rare these days. Teenage Dreams makes for a soul-hugging, if not revelatory, set that’s incredibly wholesome. There’s much to be said for that in these wildly unnerving days of daily doom and disaster.
