Dave O'Neil Is Happy To Be Out Of The House

Note: This review is from 2012

Review by Steve Bennett

It’s a atmosphere some comedians would kill to be able to generate, but sitting in Dave O’Neil’s audience is genuinely to feel like you’ve stumbled into a relaxed conversation among friends.

That feeling was certainly enhanced tonight, as the radio favourite’s Mum and Dad were also in the room, and he’d casually direct comments and questions in their direction as naturally as if we were sat around the O’Neil kitchen table. Yet he has such everyman charm, that this didn’t feel to cliquey or excluding; just a bloke having a chat. He’s just as at ease talking about a girl in the front row about her gap-year travels to Europe, or a fellow weary Dad about getting shot of the kids.

Much of his actual act revolved around his children: Jasper, seven, Kitty, four, and Barney, two – and, yes, he’s first to acknowledge their pet-like names. There’s no great insight here, beyond the fact they dominate your life – hence the show’s title – and while his homely yarns often lack punchlines, there’s an engaging affability to it all. Occasionally the 45-year-old Everyman would throw in a real gag or astute observation, just to remind us there are scripted elements to this and that he is a comedian, not just a top bloke. But mostly he was happy for that to be the impression.

His big news of the year is that he spent most of it recovering from a broken leg, which he spectacularly sustained in an ill-advised radio stunt just before the last comedy festival – and he’s got the video footage to prove it; which you have to watch through the gaps in your fingers. Again, his description of the event is so affable, you really feel the pain etched on his face on screen and barely notice the lack of gags.

In fact, he’s often better when he avoids the jokes altogether; an awkwardly tagged-on riff about Eighties music contains such clichés as sarcastically answering the question in the title of the 1981 hit Do They Know It’s Christmas? which is a joke that’s as old as the charity single itself. Still it paves the way for his finale, where an audience volunteer – his Dad tonight, naturally – allows him to indulge his pop star fantasy with a cheesy musical lyric-swap parody.

There’s hardly anything of substance in this 60 minutes, yet it remains unprepossessingly good-spirited fun. He’s a nice guy, that Dave O’Neil…

Reviewed at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, April 2011

Review date: 1 Jan 2012
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett

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