Comedy Festival 2018: Matt Okine casually sinks in the boot in The Hat Game ★★★
MATT Okine looks comfortably casual in jeans, sneakers and T-shirt, and his attitude, physicality and material are just as casual and loose.
Comedy Festival
Don't miss out on the headlines from Comedy Festival . Followed categories will be added to My News.
MATT Okine looks comfortably casual in his jeans, sneakers, black T-shirt and cap, and his attitude and physicality is just as casual and loose throughout his show, The Hat Game.
He strolls across the stage, riffing on iPhones, bus tickets, peanuts, and how you can use credit cards to buy just about anything, anywhere. He rants about social media, idiots that populate that online world, Facebook ads, and Big Data.
JASON BYRNE: MASTER OF IMPROV RELIABLY BRILLIANT
DANIEL BURT: RAPID-FIRE GAGS MAKE LIGHT OF A GRIM PAST
Okine identifies himself as ‘brown’ then sticks the boot into racism in general, and, specifically, Australian political racism exhibited by One Nation.
His running story about seeking dual citizenship with Ghana (his father’s Ghanaian) has a comic pay-off by the end. Another running story dates from 10 years ago when he was barely scraping a living as a novice comedian, and his visits to the casino at that time provide material about winning and losing — and losing again.
His routine includes some tightly structured gags with clever tag lines and pay-offs, but he also wanders into some long, slow and relatively unformed lead-ups to jokes that don’t always generate laughs.
TITUS O’REILY SLOTS IT BETWEEN THE POSTS
TIM KEY: SAD-SACK CHARM SCORES A STRIKE
One gag makes the entire audience simultaneously laugh and groan with disapproval (or disgust?), because it is essentially a bit offensive. He admits he loves this gag, then spends the next five minutes analysing its comedic value.
Okine often delivers his material to the ceiling, which disengages him from his audience, and he wastes his final minutes unnecessarily listing his performance resumé, from his past as a struggling stand-up to his recent TV success.
While Okine’s blokey casualness obviously appeals to his audience and he has comedic skill, his material and delivery can be uneven.
Matt Okine, The Hat Game
Melbourne Town Hall, Supper Room, until April 22.
Comedian’s ‘disturbing’ response to Holocaust joke
A stand-up comedian who joked about the mass murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust has doubled down on his Melbourne comedy festival gag, writing a shocking response to a Jewish audience member who had taken offence.
Comics laugh it up at comedy festival awards
A young Melbourne comic and a dry UK comedian are among the big winners at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Awards, which were tinged with controversy this year.