Pointed Observations

“Dave Thornton is tall and pointy with pencil legs.” That was how reviewer Kate Herbert, writing in The Herald Sun, chose to open her assessment of Geelong-born comedian Thornton's festival show last year, The Some of All the Parts. Thornton has copped it on his (admittedly slightly angular) chin and worked the biological observation into a title for his new show this year, Tall and Pointy.

“I don't know if I can work on anything from that review,” Thornton muses. “When someone critiques you on your physical appearance you think 'Well, either I've got to put on weight, or saw my shins off so I'm less tall'. I suppose it was an apt description anyway. I'm 6'2”. I don't know where the 'pointy' came from, though – maybe it was the lighting.”

Or maybe it was a riff on the word's other meaning, that Thornton just had some good points to make? “That's not a bad way to look at it, but it's a bit of a backhanded compliment for a comedian,” he says. “He's a really good point-maker. Did he make you laugh? Not really, he just brought up some subjects I thought were interesting...”

Outside of stand-up, Thornton's had a busy year since his last festival outing. He scored a supporting role in Nine's comedy-drama House Husbands, but isn't sure whether his character, Gabriel, will be recurring.

“My first real acting role was on Bed of Roses on the ABC and I was Kerry Armstrong's character's son [Shannon], and I got shipped off to Perth,” Thornton says. “And then in House Husbands, my character got shipped off to Hong Kong. The way things are going, the next thing I'm on I'm surely going to end up in the Arctic Circle.”

The other side-project that's been taking up a lot of Thornton's time is his ongoing hosting gig with Mia Freedman on her female-focused Mamamia Today talk-back radio show, alongside Em Rusciano.

“It's extremely interesting because it focuses on mothers, and me being a human, 33 years old, with, let's be honest, testicles, sometimes I find myself in the position of going, 'Really?' Mia's so direct. She really cuts to the chase. Even off air, she explains things to me in such detail that I can't unlearn them. She explained to me all about mastitis the other day and I was like 'Oh, God. I don't know if I'm prepared for this'. It's like those scare campaigns they had in school sexual education class.”

Thornton gamely keeps his head above water in this women's world but says sometimes “the sheer futility of having the emotionally bereft brain of a man means I'm quite often sitting there going, 'I wish I had something to say but I don't'. But doing a show like that, you realise the tides are turning [from men to women]. I keep joking that I want to hold onto copies of Mad Men so I can show my grandson how we used to live. 'Look at that, men were allowed to read and we could still vote. Those were some good times'.”

WHEN & WHERE: Thursday 28 March to Sunday 21 April, MICF, Victoria Hotel, Banquet Room