Cor Blimey It's Matt
King
At Star & Garter
Hotel Nelson & Dorcas Sts. Sth Melbourne, Wed-Sat until October 18, 1996
Reviewed by KH around Oct 5, 1996
It's been a while
since I was at a pub comedy gig. Aah! My
misspent youth! The publican greeted me; "Are you the
judge?" Was I missing a wet T-shirt
comp in the bar? I trailed upstairs, followed by the perfume of stale beer, to
a windowless room with a kids' wacky alphabet doona cover/backdrop on a tiny
stage. Comedy still works on a low
budget.
Matt King ambles onstage with a bad Geography-class map of
England. He is a warm, mild-mannered, sweet-tempered stand-up with a
Hertfordshire accent - or is it f...ing Essex? He started slowly but by the end
this audient was laugh-weeping at frighteningly true, gruesome childhood
stories about his militaristic dad's obsession with order and adventure
holidays. King engenders a heap of sympathetic "Ohs!" and "poor
sod" responses.
The word- gag picture of little Mattie painted by big Mattie
is of a skinny, unsporty kid with attitude. He alienates his nightmare German
exchange family, evades death by kayak in a France and finally escapes England
for good for Oz, land of his favourite scary, lethal critters.
King is a great yarn-spinner and the longer the story the
better. He re-incorporates snippets, appeals to our sympathies and our
prejudices about the English, the Germans, the French, the military, the cub
scouts - everything. The more excruciating the story, the funnier he is.
We squirm at his adoption story: " They did a bit of
shopping on the way home and picked up a baby too." His father's homemade
snake costume is every kid's embarrassing nightmare. The whole routine travels
a path to dad getting his just deserts for being a total shit.
KATE HERBERT
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