Damian Clark’s show is based around his story of himself and his Irish girlfriend after they travelled to Ireland. He essentially tells stories and scenes in his own brand of observational humour. Most of it was quite funny, although some of his gags were fairly predictable. His saving grace was that, put simply, if you did not like one joke, you only had to wait two seconds for another one. He does have one quality to his act that I have not seen much of so far this year; he seemed genuinely happy to be performing, and really enjoyed himself onstage. It was a small gig, but even so he was perfectly happy performing to us.
His comedy style to me seemed similar to other comedians, more well known in Australia; Wil Anderson and the like. Loud, with plenty of Aussie slang terms and idioms. He came off as confident without being cocky, completely aware of his audience and very comfortable with his material.
I did feel a sense of having heard a lot of this type of material before. There was nothing groundbreaking, nothing you wouldn’t get from most other stock-standard comedians going round. Jokes along the lines of “Girls are different from men, here’s why” and “I’m getting older, things are different” et cetera, et cetera… a few of his gags left me somewhat uninspired while writing this review.
That being said, there were some moments that made me laugh out loud; something I rarely do, even when highly amused. Such as his explanation for bar fights, his tour of the backstage area, or his arse (which he believes to have been given to him from god in a mix-up of ethnicity).
Also, it must be said that I found myself feeling genuine empathy for him as he told his story; I “nawwwww”ed and cheered for him along with the rest of the audience. Overall, he told a funny, heart-warming story that was enough to make us applaud at the end.
For full booking details check out the Melbourne Comedy Festival website