Comedy Festival 2017: Luke Heggie is a rolled gold equal opportunities grump ★★★★

SMART, smooth and superb delivery of some rolled gold Aussie whinging from Luke Heggie.

LUKE Heggie has little time for many different types of people, but has clearly spent plenty of time working out how to describe the ways in which they grind his gears.

Lest you think this show is the ravings of a madman pushed to the brink by modern society, we can assure you that Rough Diamante is no angry screed. It’s a beautifully written, coolly delivered takedown, somehow relayed without the off-putting aromas of malice or spite.

Heggie is here to tell it as he sees it. Laugh if you like. Or not. He’ll keep on rolling, stacking brilliant observations with wonderfully evocative descriptors. Listen closely or you might miss a shock line or passing gag that other acts might knock 10 minutes out of.

It’s a truly unique style that results in a consistent but low-octane audience reaction. Heggie almost doesn’t need the crowd there, this is the sort of gear that would likely work just as well whether there was three or 300 in the room.

Luke Heggie smartly dances between political raindrops in his show Rough Diamante.

While spiritual cousin and fellow Queenslander Damien Power takes a wider view of humanity, Heggie narrows his focus to the tribes and characters within it, painting vivid pictures as he marvels at their capacity to get the worst out of themselves.

Online trolls, cyclists, consultants, dog owners, parents who can’t name their kids properly, table tennis players, overseas travellers, journalists, people who get offended on behalf of other people, over-involved dads, under-involved dads, “real men”, men with “poet hands”… Heggie is nothing if not an equal opportunities grump.

And for any social justice warriors out there readying their blades, it rarely, if ever, feels as if Heggie’s punching down. Describing himself as a tradie as well as the time he worked in a café, he smartly dances between political raindrops, never quite tipping his hand to those looking to label him.

“Another harsh but fair show about idiots”, the first line of his blurb reads. Couldn’t have put it better ourselves.

The Chinese Museum until April 23

Buy tickets here