If his posters are to be believed, stand-up comedian Daniel Connell's head is so perfectly square, he could moonlight as a Jenga block. But it turns out Daniel’s head may not be as boxy as advertised.
"A lot of people aren't picking up that it's Photoshopped," he says with a good-natured but slightly perturbed laugh. "I've had people online saying, 'Oh, he does have a box head, this guy'.”
Tackling the geometric controversy head-on, Daniel explains, "my ears are not that straight on the sides. It's all been squared up to make it look way more boxy than my head actually is."
This crucial clarification comes as Connell tours his latest show, 'Box-Headed Manbaby', throughout the festival circuit.
Known for his unhurried delivery and effortless storytelling, he's established a distinctive voice in the Australian comedy scene. The Age once described his style as "comedy origami” – a description Daniel was pretty chuffed about.
"I think origami can be harder at times than what I'm dishing out, but I'll take it. I guess what they mean is, when it's a full show, I'll have a lot of callbacks towards the end and kind of tie everything into one with a bow. I do put a lot of hours and time into making it come out like that."
This careful attention to detail shows up in all of Daniel’s work. Since 2012, he's dropped a new hour of comedy every single year. Even if you've never touched a mic, you can tell that's no small feat. Ask him how he keeps it up, and he'll tell you it’s simple: he loves doing comedy and isn’t keen on boring himself to death.
"I love creating new material," he says. "The idea of writing a new joke and then testing it in the middle of winter at some club with 12 punters still excites me. . . But by the time you've done a gag a couple of hundred times, you just get sick of it, and the craving for new material is always there."
The never-ending quest for new material sometimes leads to awkward social situations. "I've definitely had moments where friends are telling me something, and then they're like, 'Are you writing that down?' And I'm like, 'Absolutely I'm writing it down'."
These hurried, mid-convo notes become a cryptic conversation between his past and present selves that he sits down once a week to interpret (and hopefully pull some jokes from). "If I looked at my notes now, there'd be probably 40 paragraphs of stuff. Some of them I have no idea what they mean because I wrote them four months ago." But when asked how much comedy relies on having funny people in your orbit, he doesn't hesitate.
"One hundred per cent. It's so crucial because I struggle to write things that are 100 per cent made up. I struggle to perform it, and I think crowds see through that when it's not coming from a genuine place. So I really need friends to be mucking up and going to jail and getting divorced and things like that. I need all that to keep happening in my life."
This commitment to authentic storytelling has resonated with audiences well beyond his immediate circle of disaster-prone friends. Television appearances on shows like 'Have You Been Paying Attention?' have expanded his reach, but the Melbourne International Comedy Festival remains a special highlight in his calendar. He's performed on the prestigious Gala stage multiple times, an experience that continues to leave him deadset stoked.
"I’d probably watched 20 of them previously in my life. It was such an institution. You just did not miss the gala every year. . . And then when you start doing stand-up, it's very much in the distance, always the thing you want to achieve. And then I was on one," he recalls, surprise still filling his voice. "It's just an amazing venue, beautiful, old, 3,000 seats, and the crowd is just so wild, they're so razzed up."
The magic of the Gala hasn't diminished over time. "There's just something about that night, that crowd, that venue. I don't think I could ever get sick of it. And if I do, it's time to give it away I reckon!"
The Melbourne International Comedy Festival itself creates an unmistakable buzz as summer fades and the streets fill with that distinct mix of locals and visitors, all hunting for their next laugh. "The city's just so cool at that time of year,” Daniel says. “All the Comedy Festival flags pop up, and just seeing all your mates from interstate come down for it. It's just like a big party for a month."
If you’re coming to the festival and trying to plan your schedule, Daniel has some advice: "Go and see someone you’ve never heard of before. You'll see someone in a pub handing out flyers to their own show half an hour before they start. Just take a punt. You might love it, you might not like it, but it's always worth taking a risk."
Daniel Connell plays Max Watt's (Melbourne International Comedy Festival) 27 March-13 April.
