Dalin Oliver: 90 Day Comedian

Dalin Oliver is from South Africa and South Africa – its differences from other places – is what his show is about.  He’s ebullient, amiably aggressive and teasing.  First step: suss out who’s in the audience.  Any South Africans?  Yes?  People Oliver can bounce off for specifics, place names, cultural and language differences – plus get the in-jokes.  (I’m not too sure what Oliver would do if there were no South Africans in the audience – but he’s quick on his feet, he’d think of something.)

There’s a running gag about the word ‘ute’ which is a term, apparently, only used here in Australia.  In South Africa, these vehicles – pick-ups or whatever - are called something else – and it’s the same word as for a container like, say, Tupper Ware.  But in South Africa, there’s no container like Tupper Ware – it’s is an old plastic ice-cream container...  which could contain soup.  And so on.

So, we hear a lot about South Africa, always prefaced by how beautiful it is...  It also seems to be somewhere a lot of burglaries and petty corruptions take place and we get clear instructions on how you’d get out of a speeding fine...  In South Africa, you need to understand what’s called ‘the assignment’ to get by.  Oliver makes great use of the microphone for sound effects, and he uses his body brilliantly to act out his stories – like, someone standing in the back of a speeding truck holding a fridge under one arm and a television under the other is vivid and hilarious. 

A lot of this sounds like an exaggerated but realistic description of a kind of backward country – but it’s very funny and much funnier if you’re from South Africa.  I could be pre-prejudiced, but I pictured some hapless black guy in the back of that truck.  Oliver only gets into race to turn it on himself: he says he’s ‘coloured’ although he doesn’t look it and can’t get anyone to believe it.  In fact, with his nose, he’s usually mistaken for a Muslim or a Jew... So, he responds to all greetings appropriately.

He enlists the rest of the audience into the act whenever he can.  He’s very good at this – it’s like quick improv.  On my night a good humoured 21-y-o Australian engineering student is teased because he admits he doesn’t know what he wants to do when he grows up - and then Oliver picks another victim as contrast - another ‘successful’ young guy in the audience - ‘private school guy’.  He gets heaps, of course. 

Playing off these young men segues nicely into one of Oliver’s major themes: how to give contemporary kids – who are soft, know nothing TikTok-ers – resilience and toughness.  Treat ‘em mean, treat ‘em rough – well, not really, just scare ‘em.  That’s how they’ll learn about the real world and be ready for it.  Oliver’s been a schoolteacher himself, so he sort of knows what he’s talking about.

But another audience member, a young woman, volunteers that she once worked in South Africa, and it was terrible.  We get no details, so we imagine, but that stops Oliver in his tracks – momentarily.  We know she’s not joking.  Audience participation will be different every show, of course, but you can be sure he’ll handle it and keep things moving along.

90 Day Comedian ­is a curious show.  It has played all over the world and met with great success.  But its central gag, here anyway, is South Africa versus Australia.  For me, this wears a bit thin because – no offence, I hope, but it’s not that interesting.  Oliver gets away with it – carried along by his physical miming, his manic energy and quick wit.

Michael Brindley