An Evening with David Sedaris

It’s been a long time since Davis Sedaris was a Macy’s elf down on his luck and something of a self-deprecating outsider. But over the past two decades he has transformed his written and spoken reflections into a wry empire, and visits Australia once again at the Opera House.

Sedaris has made his fame and fortune with huge wit and humour, charming audiences with tales of nurturing spiders in Normandy and trying to quit smoking in Japan. His work has been published in The New Yorker, including a story about carnivorous Kookaburras and the Australian song’s part in his fractured childhood.

Sedaris is a veteran of biographical remonstrance, and making these self-observations seem easy. It’s not.

Now his cleverness is not really in tune, at least not here. The show will be overproduced and bland. Too bad. I’d like to have met his spider pal.

Jan 18-19. Opera House, Sydney Opera House, Bennelong Point, Sydney. $47.20-$69+b.f. Tickets & Info: www.sydneyoperahouse.com

By Olga Azar.