Melbourne comedy festival review by Steve Bennett

Rose Matafeo’s getting to be quite the big deal in her native New Zealand. Since starting stand-up at 15, nine years ago, she’s scooped awards for her live shows and become a regular on TV sketch shows, so her Melbourne debut comes with quite the pedigree.

It is, however, something of a mess. An intentional mess, admittedly, to the extent that the voice of God at the end apologises for the show being ‘all over the place; a bit patchy’ – although such a disclaimer does nothing to make it right. Charitably, you could say Matafeo is refreshingly unbeholden to conventions, though ‘undisciplined’ is probably the word that springs more freely to mind.

The premise is that we are all mourners here to lay her to rest. A preamble from the ill-defined character of a funeral director sets this up. But then, after disappearing into a cardboard coffin, Matafeo springs from her eternal resting place as herself… and launches into some stand-up about the wasteful New Zealand flag referendum and contestants on The Bachelorette. Not very funereal, you might rightly think.

She jumps back and forth into the alleged concept over the course of a noisy hour, which bundles up celebrity impressions, spoof jingles for a fictional energy drink, discussions about Sean Paul’s accent, stand-up about air travel and much more besides. Sometimes she does consider thoughts of mortality or the ‘rich tapestry of life’ (in a non-morbid way; she’s upbeat about everything) but she’ll just as likely not.

The chaos is carried by the strength of Matafeo’s energetic performance. She owns the stage and is a very engaging talent… but even this isn’t quite enough to hold together a show pulling in a dozen directions at once. It seems she’s trying to show off all her skills, even tap-dancing, rather than commit to a single focus. And indeed, the result is: ‘great performer, shame about the show'.

She’s got funny bones, no doubt, and there’s plenty of amusing morsels from a comedian you could never accuse of being cliched, including some amusingly awkward interplay with organist/put-upon sidekick Paul Williams. But Finally Dead is strangely unsatisfying, despite the respectable tally of strong individual moments.

Review date: 6 Apr 2016
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett