Melbourne comedy festival review by Steve Bennett

He’s a lovely young man, is Luka Muller. Wide-eyed and ever-smiling, he’s open and affable, ditching the mic for extra intimacy as he asks his audience to be nice to him. We are. When a gentle heckler asks him for more information on an anecdote, he obliges, saying: ‘If you have any questions, do please ask.’ Awww.

Small-town good manners clearly run deep, and his genial tales often revolve around acts of kindness, or the usual teenage awkwardness that isn’t so many years away for him. He still likes eating pizza and playing video games, and darkest his heart gets is revealing that he and his mates once stole a bike. ‘I’m way too happy to say anything real,’ he confesses, astutely.

The feeling is that he’s delightful company, but at 22 he’s still wet behind the ears, without the life experience for corking tales or searing insight. Splitting from his girlfriend is heartbreaking for him, though older members of the audience might not fully empathise with his pain over a relationship lasting less than two years, despite the betrayal he obviously feels. However he tries to take the advice of his UFC hero Anderson Silva, who’s mantra is ‘be like water’, flowing around the obstacles in front of you but forgetting those you’ve passed.

There is, however, an emotional gutpunch of a twist in this tale of infidelity, which brings plenty of final-act weight to a story that’s otherwise slight on content. Many of the preceding stories are uneventful, but he draws the most out of them, while the poignancy, when it comes, is well handled.

For Muller puts together his debut hour solidly, making the most of what he’s got and undeniably buoyed by that nice guy image you can only warm to. He’ll surely grow as a comedian with more years under his belt – though hopefully he won’t suffer any more experiences as brutal as the one at this show's conclusion. 

Review date: 13 Apr 2016
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett