Review: Matt Storer's WUSS at The Regal Theatre for Perth Comedy Festival

A self-deprecating comic with a distinctive voice, Matt Storer has been making waves on the Perth comedy scene for a few years now. I was lucky enough to see him perform at TOD Talks (a send up of the famous TED Talks) during this most recent Fringeworld, where comedians delivered improvised speeches about a topic chosen at random by the audience. Storer performed admirably then, but my experience at Wuss indicates that he's also excellent with pre-prepared material as well.

I would argue that one of the marks of a good comic is when they have a weirdly unresponsive audience and still don't falter. Storer's audience questions were routinely met with awkward silence or one very enthusiastic response but he took it all in stride. Particularly impressive was the love song he improvised for an audience member who seemed intent on giving him the most difficult words and phrases to rhyme with. In fact, his music was perhaps my favourite part. Storer has a melodious voice, made all the funnier when deconstructing love song tropes or belting out a mile-a-minute ode to what a love song about white people might sound like.

A solid physical comedian as well as a wordsmith, Storer's general content was very good and covered a wide array of topics. This was one of the most universal sets I've seen this Comedy Festival, starting from broader topics (including a delightful audience warm up featuring children's songs) before eventually narrowing in on jokes that were more Australia and Perth based. There wasn't a lot that you could call subversive or edgy, but I would argue that comedy doesn't always need to be those things in order to be effective.

A solid show by a solid performer, I'd be very keen to see Storer branch out more into parody and comedy songs. I'd certainly buy that album!