Charming, witty, and offering a perspective that doesn’t get much airtime in run of the mill comedy shows, Oliver Hunter delivers a solid hour of jokes in his 2023 show, 'Wheels Of Fortune'.
Following a sold-out run of shows at last year’s festival, his new show is a well-constructed series of tales packed full of sharp and witty punch lines, all wrapped up in stories – some true, and as Oliver himself points out, some not so true – but all very, very funny.
As a person with a disability, Oliver can speak on topics that a lot of comics at this year’s comedy festival aren’t really covering off – which is a great relief when it gets to the tail-end of the festival and the same same nature of many acts causes them to blend into one another. Despite close to 20 per cent of Aussies having lived experiences with disability, representation in the comedy scene is low. There are some incredible comics with disabilities on this year’s festival line-up, among them you’ll find Oliver, who has yarns aplenty to share about the NDIS, what it’s like to employ a roster of quirky support workers, and a handful of stories about how others perceive and engage with his disability – all told through an expert comedic lens.
He’s also got some great material about camping, stereotypes related to names and Victoria’s very own V-Line train service – just in case you’re worried it’s just a 'disability show' – though if you’re the kind of person thinking like that, perhaps this is the perfect show to open up your mindset about what it means to be a person with a disability here in Australia.
Oliver is a natural when it comes to crowd work, acting quickly to adapt to the audience’s demographic and riffing on the crowd’s response to a few particular jokes. There are also plenty of laughs to be found as Oliver pulls out some very unique turns of phrase, the likes of which can only come from having grown up in regional Australia – Albury in his case.
The hour flew by quickly, and before we knew it Oliver was wrapping up the well-paced and incredibly enjoyable show. 'Wheels Of Fortune' doesn’t provide a big take-away or story arc for punters to unravel on the way home, this is just a show full of simple, old-school jokes, delivered through a lens that many of us may not be used to seeing life through, which in itself is an experience very well worth diving into.
