Reviewed by Kat Green
Waiting in line at the Enmore Theatre, the crowd of enthusiastic Nat fans are distinct in their style and cadence. It feels more like you’re lining up for a Slipknot show than a comedy show, but regardless the crowd is heaving with excitement. Nat’s What I Reckon sprung to viral fame during the peak of the pandemic in 2020, with his cheeky and hilarious cooking videos. Since his rise to fame, he has released a book and began a national tour with his first hour length comedy show.
Opening the show is Sydney comedy scene favourite, Andrew Bensley. Bensley has the crowd safely in his hands from the moment he steps on stage, with his relatable and accessible comedy style. He remained calm and unscathed by the rowdy audience, with a few yells of “Where is Nat?!”, unfortunately a common occurrence for any opening act, especially for a big name like Nat. Bensley is a classic and natural comedian, who I hope to see so much more of in the Australian comedy scene.
Nat enters the stage to a loud and boisterous crowd, with a partial standing ovation. Nat is a natural on stage, he makes each audience member feel like they’re having a one on one conversation with a mate. Opening the show Nat uses a slideshow to dictate the first few jokes, which works well and has his audience captivated. Throughout the show, Nat would show a video and exit the stage, in between each video, he would do 5-10 minutes of conversational stand up comedy. I for one, and I am sure many other members of the audience, was expecting to experience a live cook with Nat, seeing as this is his claim to fame, but unfortunately this did not happen.
As a huge stand up comedy fan, I was a little disappointed with the structure of the show, as funny and charismatic as Nat is, the whole show felt like a bit inside joke with his die hard fans, there were a lot of references to particular videos or tweets, that would not make sense to a lot of people. It was also a little disappointed to have majority of the show be videos, this very much felt like something we could have all done at home, without the ticket price. Nat has created an incredibly funny and successful platform for himself, he just needs to solidify how exactly to bring that to the stage in an accessible and more well-rounded way.
Image Supplied