Thirty year-old comedian-turned-breakfast-radio-host-turned-TV-presenter-turned-ARIA-winner Matt Okine is full of existential questions in his self-titled festival show this year. It’s been fueled by a couple of serious changes in his life. Namely, getting a “real” job and becoming rich (“I mean, I’m not ‘parking at the airport’ rich, but I’m ‘four hours on Lygon Street’ rich, you know?”), dating as an adult for the first time after the end of a nine-year relationship, and of course, that time one of his radio listeners – a doctor – suspected he had MS and suggested over the text-line that he come in for urgent testing.
His show has no real theme to it, more just a barrage of anecdotes from Okine’s new found life of the past two years, but he’s warm, relatable and hilariously animated. A 4.30am wakeup before broadcasting to a million people around the country is a surefire way to get yourself some comedy material, and as it would appear, quite a bit of hate from the radio phone-line to social media (shout out to Justine from Masterchef, you cheeky devil Okine). It’s pretty fair to assume that much of the young crowd have been drawn to him from his primetime triple j hosting gig, but still he doesn’t alienate those, explaining everything briefly as he goes along to those who might know him better from his starring role as an Ethiopian diplomat in Sea Patrol, in which he had two lines delivered beautifully – in a Ghanaian accent.
He manages to seamlessly weave in some more serious moments – exploring racism in Australia and the sexism that is inherent in all of us, testing the audience by making us assume that the doctor who was worried he had MS was a male, after twenty minutes later revealing her as the kindest, most open doctor he’d ever seen.
“Have I gone overtime again? Oh, six minutes? – I didn’t see the light! I’m Matt Okine thanks bye,” he says as bounds off stage. Sure, we could have done with a slightly weightier ending, but maybe that’s part of Okine’s charm. Gone as quickly as he appeared, it’s an hour of feel-good, relatable comedy about that reminds us all not to take anything too seriously.
BY MATILDA EDWARDS
