Comedy festivals overflow with bright young things doing dating humour these days. And these routines are littered with cookie-cutter Facebook, dating app and Instagram material.
So with ‘relationship status update’ punchlines the new mother-in-law jokes, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why New Zealander Eli Matthewson’s schtick sticks where others’ don’t.
Matthewson hangs the loose theme of his show off the recently viral news that millennials have less sex than their parents. Let’s not quibble about the veracity of the statement when there’s jokes about your mum and dad 'doing it' to be had. [Hey, it was good enough for doing Time… but if you really want to see exactly what was said in the study that contributed to this popular internet factoid, order your very own copy of the Archives Of Sexual Behaviour today.]
While Matthewson does share a couple of personal stories about those moments when he became aware that his parents were sexual beings, tales of his own sexual adventures don’t really back up the theory that he’s getting less action than his folks. In fact, it sounds like he’s doing just fine.
We hear about Matthewson’s recent attempt at singledom before his latest boyfriend came along. His stories are smart, fast and, most importantly, funny. His situations are relatable — except maybe for a sex-during-an-earthquake story - although maybe that’s more common in New Zealand than we Aussies realise. However, it's when he dabbles in the direction of politics that his audience laughs out loudest.
The Year Of Magical F%*king could benefit from some tweaks though. His local references are a little confused (what was that about people in green morph suits?) and his final gag — the joke that should have had the strongest punchline of the show — fell unfortunately flat. Before this, Matthewson had been on a roll with some hilariously withering observations about the recent brouhaha surrounding the gay-ification of Disney. It was the perfect high to end on, but instead he chose to go out on the kinda feel-good story that you’d expect Russell Howard to end his show with. It’s cute for sure, but Matthewson had already proved that he’s far better than that.
Eli Matthewson presents The Year Of Magical F%*king to 23 Apr at Forum Theatre, part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
