Melbourne comedy festival review by Steve Bennett

Two things are true of a lot of comedians. They tend to achieve the competency and confidence to perform their first solo show as their 20s turn into their 30s – which for the men, especially, seems to evoke concerns about their transition into adulthood. Women perhaps don’t suffer the same arrested development, and hit that point of maturity sooner.

The second thing is that comics tend to be poor. Very poor.

Both these apply to 29-year-old Sydneysider Mitch Garling. But while the territory is familiar, he works it like a real pro:  witty, charming and self-deprecating.

There’s a nostalgia for his simpler childhood life, evoking relatable stories about running away from home (but only as far as at the park) and even the withering 1990s insult of the title. 

Yet now he finds grown-up life a struggle. He gets stuck in the bath, has to steal toilet rolls and his wildest dreams involve getting some free time on the office printer.  He’s not completely square: he still goes to music gigs, he’s just happy when they end early.

It’s sometimes hard to identify actual jokes in his shtick – though they are present –  but his down-to-earth attitude of cheerfully acceptance that life is shit is infectiously upbeat. 

He’s a pro, too, in performance. This crowd – ‘crowd’! – numbers five, comprising two of us from comedy websites, and a guy in the front row who couldn’t leave his damn phone alone for two minutes, and a couple. Yet Garling plays the audience he wants, not the one he has, delivering with affable assurance and an easy charm. 

You can envisage him holding his own in any comedy room, not least because the likeable loser is such an easily mined trope. Garling is not cutting any edges with his take on this formula, but Tell Someone Who Cares is a robust debut of unflashy stand-up, more dependable than much of the more self-consciously arty offerings at this festival.

Review date: 30 Mar 2018
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival