Matt Okine has stepped back from his position behind the triple j breakfast mic and dived back into the stand-up circuit with his new show ‘We Made You’.
It’s always a joy to have Okine back in his hometown and it seems that he enjoys it just as much as the audience. He spent his first few minutes on some Brissie specific material, jovially listing off familiar suburbs and their well-known quirks to the absolute delight of the crowd. Everyone loves an inside joke.
From here, Okine delved into a collection of pleasing stories touching on his father’s brutal jabs at his receding hairline, crab meat and how he’s broke again now he’s off the radio wagon. While all these anecdotes were pleasant enough there was no real belly laughs as a result of them.
The real gripe with ‘We Made You’ is that Okine recycled jokes. First by rattling off some “I’m broke” one liners which, to be fair, is excusable due to that fact that they were setting up another punchline. However, when Okine launched into a ten-minute story about a wild night in Fortitude Valley that had featured prominently in one of his previous shows, it became a little grating.
While this might be commonplace for older, international comedians to reuse jokes it is really not up to scratch on the festival circuit where comics regularly turn over brand new hours.
He pulled it back with some audience participation about the ranking of all the different types of potato that contained the biggest laugh of the evening when a punter yelled “Gnocchi!” only to be ragged on mercilessly.
Matt Okine has had some ripping hours but, while it was entertaining, ‘We Made You’ was a little lacklustre. It’s a pattern that has presented itself before with former triple j host Tom Ballard who, after leaving radio, presented a show not up to his usual standard the following year.
Judging by the juggernaut Ballard has been riding since that subpar show, one can only hope the Okine will be back next year with something a little fresher.
