Dan Willis offers his comedic musings on the 1986 feel-good movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, in which the eponymous hero skipped school and, as the tagline says “did it all in one day”.
Inspired by Bueller’s notion that “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it”, Willis decided to add a mantra of his own – “What would Ferris do?”. Fast forward ten years and he can tell us where this life changing decision has taken him.
Despite his self-deprecating remarks he manages to look like an older version of the Ferris that we see in a still from the movie. It’s an ideal venue, with large LCD screens on every wall. As it turns out only one person in the audience hasn’t seen the film.
No problem though as our host has kindly put together excerpts from the film and sound clips to illustrate his points. This leads to his own experiences and comparisons to Bueller’s attributes. He touches on that fast passing of time, on taking a "sicky", on marriage and relationships, the desire to be cool, grudges and friendship and, as at the end of the movie, person responsibility.
While Ferris can handle anything and is James Bond suave with the ladies, Willis, like the rest of us has a few embarrassing tales to tell. While the early part of the show is more geared to the movie it latterly starts to feel like a device to link his stand-up material.
Willis has an easy style of banter with the audience but gets somewhat diverted by the fact that one of the crowd went to the same school as him - fun, but not exactly riveting for the rest of us. When it comes to a section on PMT he should direct himself to his own question “What would Ferris do?”. Probably not go there is the answer, but at least it feels authentically 1980’s.
It’s a free show (with a free badge) and the premise is clever, but at the end of the day it could be better. As Ferris Bueller would say “You can never go too far”.
Times
6-29 August, 5.45pm
Tickets
Free (donation)