MICF: One Man Breaking Bad

Miles Allen’s solo comedy act, based on the critically acclaimed tv series Breaking Bad, was destined to garner a lot of interest at this year’s MICF after a YouTube clip of the LA-based actor/voiceover artist doing impressions of Breaking Bad characters went viral. Capitalising on the show’s success with his unique brand of humour and pin-point characterisation, Allen is more than just an overnight YouTube sensation. 

When the season finale aired here last September, it left a gaping vacuum in the hearts and minds of people with superb taste in television. What were we to do with our Monday nights now? Heisenberg t-shirts became de-rigueur for hipsters and Walter White, the chemistry teacher turned methamphetamine kingpin, entered the consciousness of a tv-fuelled generation.

A self-confessed Breaking Bad and Netflix addict, Allen’s parents and friends staged an intervention of sorts when his obsession with two guys driving an RV around Albuquerque and cooking sconte threatened to absorb his every waking moment. He waxes lyrical about balancing his addiction with other tv-series like the non-pc American adult animated sitcom Family Guy and Quentin Tarantino flicks. Suffice it to say, the intervention didn’t go well. And as Allen is a devout Christian, God clearly had other plans for him.

Bearing this in mind, any seeming disconnect between Allen’s on-/off-stage persona is a stereotype. Here is a comedian who flagrantly throws around cuss-words, like Jessie Pinkman, yet makes time to attend Melbourne’s City of The Hill Church between shows. The show is littered with non-pc quotes from the show and Allen even ruminates that we should all say bitches more often. He can be very convincing, as I discovered.

One Man Breaking Bad covers all six seasons in 60 minutes and will leave the die-hards and the poor-uninitiated howling. It’s like being in the same room with your favourite (and not so favourite characters) all over again. There’s anti-hero Walter White; Hank Schrader, with his mineral rocks and cringe-worthy baseball analogies; Skyler, with her gay ass talking pillow; Mike, the magical criminal fixing fairy; Walt Jnr, encouraging us to have an A1 day; and other notables like Gus Fring, Saul Goodman and Hector Salamanca and his bell.

Allen is capitalising on the success of the hugely successful tv show with his own show, but he brings a freshness to it that borders on nostalgia. Amen to that, bitches!