I do always like to try to tick off a bucket list comedian or two each year at the Fringe. Rose Matafeo has been on that list for quite some time now, so it’s nice to finally right that wrong.
I’m delighted to find that this is my favourite kind of show, in one sense. The difficult, niche, third way. This is not a show about nothing, an empty if funny collection of nonsense stories; it’s also not a show about some big personal thing - the turning 30, the dead dad, the breakup. This is a state of the world show - not political (well, let’s avoid the discursion on the idea that things can be political without being topical), or strictly philosophical, but about what life is today. Matafeo is tackling the idea of how the world has redefined, patronisingly, the idea of being single; the generational gap between millenials and gen z in how that manifests; the processing power of the Notes app. It’s high minded stuff, and I love it.
There’s always a question, with this kind of thing, though, of how much did I like the show vs. the idea of the show? I think I liked both - Matafeo is funny, and engaging, but could there have been more laughs? Maybe. It’s not strictly polemic or lacking in gags, but it could maybe be more balanced. It feels like the/a theme of this Fringe is comedians more explicitly crossing over into the theatre space - see Ivo Graham doing both a stand up show and a one-man show, the notion being that the latter is distinctly not expected to be funny. I don’t necessariily think that separation should be explicit, but something to think about.
Part of it, I suppose, is the question of what exactly at this point Matafeo has to prove? She’s already won best show, and she can’t win it again. She is a bankable enough property (ugh) post-Starstruck and Taskmaster and Horndog that she is allowed a misstep (not, to be clear, that On And On And On is a misstep) or to not bother at all with Edinburgh or even stand up. So it would be interesting to learn to what extent this show is a result of a new found sense of freedom, to aim for the stars knowing that she might miss.
Towards the beginning, Matafeo claims she is bad at endings - a fun and explored double meaning between the show and her personal life, and superficially this might be true. There is a very pronounced beginning to this show, and a less pronounced ending, but behind that is some lovely structural trickery that very nicely dovetails into the subtext of the show. She deserves much more credit for this than she’s received.