Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

Now THIS is how you perform stand-up.

There will be comics at this festival with more imaginative, more provocative and more original material than Rove McManus, but very few who will be able to deliver their thoughts with the easy-going precision of this seasoned pro, timing every line to extract the strongest laugh from it.

However rehearsed the show is, the anecdotes seem relaxed, the asides and snafus unplanned, like much of this has just occurred to him. He interacts with the audience enough to bring them into his world and rolls with the to-and-fro. Even the teacher in the front row who couldn’t help herself from starting a conversation with the bloke from the TV, barely before he’d started, was indulged. He provided her with the attention she sought, the rest of us with a spontaneously amusing scene, and himself a beautifully fluid glide into the prepared material.

His theme’s not an earth-shattering one, revolving as it does around his natural optimism. ‘Ridiculously confident,’ as one friend called him, and it wasn’t a compliment, though he took it to be. It’s a Hills Hoist of a premise, able to carry a hefty load of assorted material, from reckoning he could win a fight with most wild animals to getting main-character energy when he walks down the street with his daughter.

Mini-McManus and her chums provide plenty of grist for the comic’s industrious mill, from children’s parties to taking on a  mouse as a pet. McManus is king of the mainstream, and ‘kids do the funniest things’ has always been a staple of such observational comedy. Much of such content is built on relatability, of course, but in several routines Rove steps it up, either by exaggerating the incredulity of his reaction or by telling the audience things they might have already spotted, but with an eloquence they could never match. His routine about the divvying up of a birthday cake is an exemplar of its type.

Act-outs are another strength, amusingly convincing in his mimes whether he’s being a grieving bee or wanking off a rhino. OK, so it’s not all mainstream. Adding to the technical excellence, callbacks are used sparingly but effectively, and the show contrives to build to a climax. You know you’ve been manipulated, but you have to admire the artistry with which he grifted and the skill of his engineering.

Sometimes, when the material is a little more ordinary, the fully-committed performance overeggs things, quite apparently making too much of a slight observation or obvious gag. But McManus's performance never once allows the audience to doubt that they are in the hands of a funny man who knows what he’s doing. Textbook stuff.

• Rove McManus: Awesome Sauce is at the Basement Comedy Club at 8.15pm until Saturday, and 7.15pm on Sunday

Review date: 5 Apr 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival