Review by Steve Bennett

When it comes to the attributes you need to join the legion of awkward low-status comedians, Luke McGregor has a full house. He’s an uncertain, OCD-suffering, ginger nerd with an odd accent – which proved an irresistible magnet for the schoolyard bullies, and has, he believes, hampered his quest for love as an adult.

Yet he has fully embraced his situation, turning his vulnerability into a powerful comic tool. And a misleading one at that, for he proved more than capable of bantering with the friskier elements of a small Friday-night audience without breaking the spell. There’s real ability behind the shyness.

Meanwhile, his natural hesitancy has been harnessed to give him a fine, off-kilter, sense of comic timing; and audiences are naturally sympathetic to his plight. When he describes his misadventures in speed-dating, for example, you can feel his pain: ‘There’s no joke there, just real sadness...’ he laments as he winds up single again.

Self-deprecation is clearly his main tool, but not the only one. He kicks off with a wryly sarcastic offer of some $85-a-place ‘premium seats’ on stage with him, and later covers such potentially quotidian stand-up subjects as the pointless ‘hobbies’ sections on resumés with a distinctive quirkiness. It may be the OCD, but he can certainly seen the oddness in everyday things we take for granted, imagining however they became common practice.

This is McGregor’s first hour-long show – as he nervously reminds us – and as one of the best debuts in the festival, it surely won’t be his last.

Review date: 6 Apr 2013
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival