MOST people don’t “get” Austen Tayshus , and he probably doesn’t care because his audacity is what seems to drive him.

If a group of “holier-than-thou psychiatrists” can’t get a handle on the country’s most dangerous and subversive comedian, who is also an observant son of Judaism, then those who cast the first stone don’t stand a chance , particularly if they are in his audience.

Austen Tayshus (aka Isaac Cox) is Sandy Gutman’s stage name and Merchant of Menace, by Ross Fitzgerald and journalist Rick Murphy, reveals Gutman’s chaotic life and Austen Tayshus’s remarkable ability to be vulgar, crude, loud, angry, confident, outrageous and pointed.

Recognised in mainstream media as the man who delivered the smash hit Australiana (penned with fellow comedian Billy Birmingham), Austen Tayshus berates and delivers on many political, sociological and cultural levels.

Click here for the full review (PDF format)

Austen Tayshus: Merchant of Menace. Review by John Andrewartha from the ‘Sunday Tasmanian’, 31 July 2011