By Adam Rafferty
According to the man himself, it has been eight years since Luke McGregor did stand-up. The intervening years having seen him create (with Celia Pacquola) five seasons of successful ABC comedy series Rosehaven, while also appearing on many and varied panel and game shows, including The Hundred, Taskmaster Australia and The Amazing Race. Yet, if anything, his time away from live comedy seems to have made the famously awkward comedian more at ease on stage, rather than self-conscious.
Sure, he still has that innate sense of discomfort and nerdiness, revealed to likely be symptomatic of having various degrees of autism, OCD and social anxiety. So thankfully, the nervous laughter and bumbling demeanour we all know and love, combined with a wry intelligence and a highly unusual way of looking at the world, isn’t lost to the newfound confidence.
In Okay, Wow, McGregor takes aim at Flat Earthers and conspiracy theorists on one hand, while observing the undeniable truths of the day’s largest poo and bugs in your spaghetti. It’s very fun and pretty eclectic stuff, which is no doubt much like the new dad’s mind. Because, oh yes, in those last eight years he has also gone from being the genophobic dork of ABC series Luke Warm Sex to a married man, with a newborn baby and two step-children.
This helps provide new veins of comedy that weren’t part of his previous repertoire and will provide plenty of laughs in recognition from parents in the crowd who’ve also tried to reason with the superior argumentative misdirection of a child.
New life stages, bring new points of also, and McGregor does get a little political regarding the gender debate, which might make those with a less open-minded point of view slightly uncomfortable. However, challenging points of view through humour has always been the task of the court jester, has it not? Luke McGregor has all the charm and wit required to make those who might be discomfited to give the subject more thought, and that has to be a good thing.
Image: Dru Maher-Brooks
