Review – Mickey D: GOLD
Have you ever shit yourself in the Producers Bar beer garden? Because Mickey D has, and this fiercely proud South Aussie is more than happy to tell you all about it in his show GOLD.
Mickey D burst, or perhaps stumbled, into stand-up comedy as a 17-year-old finalist in Triple J’s Raw Comedy competition. Since then he’s grown up, gotten married and moved to England, but his class-clown shtick has stuck. Whether he’s making jokes about eyeing off his own aunt or just making bird noises, Mickey D doesn’t carefully construct clever jokes, but more seems to start talking in the hope that it eventually ends up somewhere funny – luckily, it almost always does. In true Adelaide fashion the relatively small audience still included one of his old primary school mates, and only minutes into the show almost everyone in the audience had been greeted with a handshake and friendly hello, or even a cheeky beard caress in the case of my date.
There’s more to being a good stand up comedian than just being funny and this is where Mickey’s 15 years of experience really come out and shine. Not every joke landed, but he took it on the chin and didn’t let the vibes drop, while subtly adjusting his act towards the stuff that did work. He also handled the dreaded hecklers beautifully (and last night had a shocker). While his humour is very blokey, and dare I say a little bit bogan, he avoids spending the show ripping on women and ethnic minorities and instead just focuses all deprecating comedy straight to himself (and a few audience members), which makes the show much easier to watch than some of his other Aussie-comedy colleagues.
It’s always a gamble seeing a stand up comic that you aren’t familiar with, but with tickets coming in at $20 or less Mickey D is a pretty safe bet. The relaxed setting helps make Mickey’s show seem less like a performance and more like someone handed the funny guy at the bar a microphone. Prepare yourself for a good laugh, and let’s all hope that he has now learnt the locations of the Producers Bar bathroom.
