Matt Okine: Broken Diamond House

Note: This review is from 2013

Review by Steve Bennett

Fast-talking Matt Okine crams about 90 minutes of material into his hour; making it an exhausting experience. But he zings with a passion and excitement, he can’t control... yelping with glee at his own punchlines and peppering his monologue with tics that act as verbal exclamation marks.

He’s got something of an agenda, too, though he wears it lightly. The crux of the show is about a recent trip to Ghana, where his dad is from, where he had hoped to reconnect with some family roots. Instead, after a rather hairy journey courtesy of Ethiopian Airlines, he found himself the rich relative pestered for cash - rather unexpectedly since, by Western standards, he lives in the penury of every other struggling comedian. And being confronted by this way of life made him question his ineffectual liberal guilt.

So there’s big issues of social injustice, but also small ones about the calibration of toaster dials, and why there’s no international agreement on crisp packet colours. There’s no clunking gear change between matters great and small, Okine’s delivery is a smooth as it comes.

He touches on racism, seeing a lot of media kerfuffles – about the supposedly offensive KFC ads that featured black people – as pointless distractions; and even manages to find an example of some ‘positive, warms-your-heart racism’ which worked in his favour.

Some of the material is of quotidian concerns, such as trying to keep up with richer mates when eating out, and could probably be gaggier; but just 12 months after he shared the best newcomer title, there’s little doubt that Okine is already a natural, conversational comic who knows exactly what he’s doing; and doing it very well.

Review date: 4 Apr 2013
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival

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