Matt Okine – perhaps unfairly best-known of late for vacuum-cleaner humour and slight hubris while interviewing certain comedy superstars – had an attentive Brisbane Comedy Festival crowd in rapturous laughter on Sunday night (15 March).
Heck, it was "really good". Suffice to say, there were no jokes about his Hoover and, as expected, Okine did eventually address the Chris Rock elephant in the room with panache – somehow in a joke about Ron Jeremy, no less.
In a sold-out Visy Theatre at the Brisbane Powerhouse, Okine spoke of his sudden rise to national recognition as breakfast co-host on Triple J, and how his new-found steady pay cheque allows such luxuries as paying rent on time and smugly buying sourdough bread, while also having to navigate the world of social-media haters.
The Brisbane-bred comic displayed remarkable growth and nous as a storytelling comedian, with this being arguably his most personal show yet. Most of the material was delivered as the thoughts that raced through his mind while he and his ex-girlfriend waited for the result of a pregnancy test.
Okine jumped from anecdote to anecdote effortlessly and weaved them all back into his central theme of coming to grips with profound, life changes. From near-humiliating tales of getting chewing gum stuck in a girl's hair and getting drunk on goon-and-Fanta cocktails to genuinely sadder revelations, such as the break-up of a nine-year relationship, the affable raconteur was at the peak of his powers.
He even humbly alluded to his rise in fame and relative fortune, pointing out he was performing in the very same room he saw his first ever comedy show – seasoned laff-vendor Wil Anderson – 12 years prior.
While the subject matter meant the show had numerous, solemn moments, Okine still injected some hilarious social observations including a brilliant comparison between rich racists in our federal government and poor racists, who only seem to get filmed being racist on buses.
Okine even gave a shoutout to his Ghanaian-dentist father, Mack, who was in the crowd, and actually the butt of an earlier cheese-related joke.
All in all, 'The Other Guy' was Okine's best work to date. You just wish Chris Rock was there.
