Spoons is one of those works that manages to be disarmingly funny while quietly breaking your heart – and then, somehow, putting it back together again. Anchored by a remarkable performance from Damian Callinan, Spoons is a finely crafted piece of storytelling, character, and emotional precision.
Callinan’s Stan Coates is unforgettable: fiercely independent and stubborn in all the ways that makes him endearing. At 84, recently widowed and facing the indignity of being uprooted into aged care, Stan clings to the things that still define him, chief among them, his late wife Denise’s sprawling collection of 988 souvenir teaspoons.
What could easily have been played as a quirky detail becomes, in Callinan’s hands, something sacred: a symbol of memory, love, and identity. Under Emilie Collyer’s assured direction, the production never tips into sentimentality. Instead, it walks a careful line between humour and grief, allowing both to coexist in a way that feels authentic.
The staging is spare, a table and chair, a bookshelf dotted with fragments of Stan’s life (a Collingwood scarf, his granddaughter Charlotte’s drawings, and a framed photo of Denise, who bears a striking resemblance to Judith Durham), alongside a scattering of packing boxes, giving Callinan ample room to fully inhabit Stan’s world, one rich with biting observations, hilarious tangents, and moments of quiet vulnerability.
The premise unfolds with delightful momentum: Stan, outfitted in a bike helmet and knee pads to guard against his orthostatic hypotension-induced falls, reluctantly agrees to consider aged care, until he’s told the spoons can’t come.
What follows is both comic and quietly subversive. Through the lens of his grandson Riley’s camera, Stan’s candid, often scathing assessments of the facilities, and his impassioned monologues about the spoons, capture an audience far beyond his living room. The viral fame that ensues feels both absurd and entirely plausible, transforming Stan into an accidental advocate for dignity in ageing.
What makes Spoons so affecting is its emotional layering. Callinan is, as always, a consummate storyteller, shifting effortlessly between laugh-out-loud humour and moments of profound pathos.
His monologues are richly textured, brimming with specificity and warmth, yet never indulgent. Every joke lands, but it’s the silences, the pauses where grief, love, and memory sit just beneath the surface, are the ones that linger the longest.
Damian Callinan: Spoons
Member’s Lounge – Arts Centre Melbourne, 100 St Kilda Road, Melbourne
Performance: Wednesday 1 April 2026
Season continues to 5 April 2026
Bookings: www.comedyfestival.com.au
For more information, visit: www.damiancallinan.com.au for details.
Images: Damian Callinan in Spoons – photos by Youngie
Review: Rohan Shearn