Last October I wrote a piece about an American storyteller – Mike Daisey …..  As Fresh as Mike Daisey.

He visited Australia last year but only some backwater city whose name escapes me.  But this week, he’s performing in Sydney – a shining light in the Sydney Writer’s Festival.

It’s not often when you go to see and hear a performance that the usher hands you money.  But that’s what happened when the First Mate and I took ourselves to spend an evening with Mike Daisey at the Studio at the Sydney Opera House.

For the record, I received a well-used $10 and FM – a similarly disposed $5, although some people allegedly received a $20 or a $50 bill and the very smug few (one gathers) a crisp $100.  We clung to these the whole performance, but the cash  money – although money was the central theme, was no distraction to what I found to be a rivetting and hilarious two hours.

Mike Daisey is a larger than life story teller.  He sat – as animated as one could possibly be while remaining seated, took us to distant places from his native Maine to Tonga and Vanuatu.  From a car crash to a near fatal landing on a polynesian airstrip.  We tasted wild pig, native style and we recoiled at the thought of fermented yam paste – and were relieved when Mike finally let us off the hook.

Some of the stories, so intricately woven into the fabric of the monologue had FM wiping tears of pure mirth from her eyes.  Mike’s reference to his pre-occupation with IKEA furniture had us in stitches.  He reminded us that although it’s made of tissue paper and cannot withstand sunlight, every piece of IKEA furniture has a name in  a language opaque to all.  “Where’s my socks ?”  “Have you looked in the Finneskoog ?”

The spine of the performance centred around a post World War II cargo cult society that celebrates all things American – in a kind of bizarre way that surfaces most obviously on their festival day – John Frum day when the village is festooned in American flags and the celebrations and dance go all night.  It’s an interesting society sustained not by material wealth, but by “custom”, and Mike has some fascinating – and hilarious observations of this society standing against the tide of materialism and the distrust of the modern financial world – epitomised by “the DERIVATIVE”.

Recounting any of Mike’s stories or letting you in on the fate of the cash handouts would do none of us any good.

But Mike Daisey is performing for a few more evenings at the OH – and if you have any chance of making it to one of the shows, GO !

Like Mike, It’s a larger than life experience.