Malcolm Galea

There’s been quite a rise in one-man (or one-woman) shows on Maltese stages recently. Last year saw actor Alan Paris wow in I Am My Own Wife, while, just a couple of weeks ago, Isabel Warrington performed Shirley Valentine to great acclaim.

Now, well-known funnyman Malcolm Galea will be taking to the stage solo in TAC Theatre’s The Accidental Pervert.

Is he nervous?

“Now that you mention it, I guess this is my first one-man show and it may be a little daunting – thanks for reminding me,” quips Galea, who is renowned for his humour both as writer and performer.

In the past he has done all sorts – improvisation shows, panto dames and stand-up comedy, “all of which are potentially scarier”.

“Of course, the main challenge of a one-man show is that you’re on stage all the time and cannot rely on someone else should you find yourself in a tight spot. Thankfully, I consider myself to be a bit of a theatre junkie and enjoy new onstage thrills.”

It was the show’s producer, Wesley Ellul, who first came across the play three years ago, while on his honeymoon in New York.

“The title instantly struck me and I wanted to know more. Thankfully, the play was as funny as its title, so it passed the first test.”

However, it also had to pass the test of fitting in with the theme of TAC Theatre’s first season – sex. “It’s the basest of human needs in its different forms, be they pleasurable or horrible,” continues Ellul, adding that there were six plays chosen to be part of the company’s season, which will continue into 2015.

“It started with Innocent Flesh, where sex is a currency, and now we’re taking a comic look at sex through the eyes of a sex addict. With summer in the offing, we wanted to leave our audiences with a smile on their faces. There will be laughs aplenty with this one.”

A combination of low-brow humour and disarming honesty

In Ellul’s words, The Accidental Pervert is a funny and “touching” (pun intended) story about a man who gets addicted to porn. It begins with the character telling the audience all about how he found his dad’s porn collection in a closet after he left him when he was 11. He started to watch it avidly as he felt it was a way of bonding with his father, even though he was no longer around.

“He developed a fixation for it as he grew up but he had to find a way of dealing with it, especially when he met his future wife,” Ellul explains.

Before taking on the role, Galea also watched the show in New York. He describes it as a “combination of low-brow humour and disarming honesty”.

“It’s this sincerity that ultimately makes it so funny,” he says. “This isn’t the story of someone who’s trying to be funny, but a man who has an embarrassing (and all too common) problem that often has unintentionally humorous consequences. Also, this piece has plenty of room for audience interaction and I like that.”

Galea is also pleased to be back working with the show’s director Marc Cabourdin. “Marc and I go back a pretty long way,” he continues. “We first met when we worked together on the musical Grease in 1998 at the Manoel Theatre when I was in my late teens and Marc in his early 20s.

Marc had also directed the first play I ever wrote; a comedy named My Friend Tito, in 2001. That play was mostly rehearsed on and around a park bench outside the bar we all used to frequent at the time. Now, The Accidental Pervert is usually rehearsed at one of our houses with baby toys and paraphernalia lying around. It’s weird how things have changed and, at the same time, not changed at all.”

But despite the innocence of their rehearsal surroundings, the troupe does promise enough naughty material to appease the adult audience the show is attracting. “We wouldn’t put an 18 rating on it for nothing, but it is naughty in a nice way,” says Ellul.

“At the end of the day, it is so funny because it is all so true. It is kind of an exposé into what goes on in a guy’s mind as he’s growing up and being exposed to the big wide world of sex and all that surrounds it.

“Plus, Malcolm’s telling of this story is phenomenal, and it’s this sincerity that will have audiences in fits of laughter.”

The Accidental Pervert runs on Friday and next Sunday and on June 13 – 15. Tickets for the opening weekend cost €10, with all other shows at €15 in the dress circle and €10 upstairs. Tickets are available online or in person from the St James Cavalier Box Office, Valletta.

www.tactheatre.com