Luke McGregor, Okay, Wow.

Luke McGregor is a familiar face on the Australian small screen. He wrote and starred in Rosehaven with Celia Pacquola and has also appeared on Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee, Thank God You're Here. More recently he raced his way around the world with his mum on The Amazing Race Australia.  Part of his charm is an endearing awkwardness which he transforms into a surprisingly candid insight into his personal life.

This performance indulges this tradition and especially draws the audience into a very personal examination of his life. As McGregor points out, a lot has changed. He is now married, has two stepchildren and recently welcomed a newborn into the family. His domestic bliss also includes two chickens and an axolotl. All of this is subject to some extraordinary scrutiny and very personal revelations.

McGregor often delivers bombshells in a very deadpan manner, and this makes the humour all the more disarming. The irony and paradoxes of everyday life are clearly constantly and overtly apparent to him in ways that might perplex, bewilder or even destabilise other people. This gives him a very fragile edge in his demeanour.

McGregor makes the material particularly endearing because it exposes what he perceives as his many vulnerabilities but he invites you to laugh with him rather than at him. This gives his shows a very personable approach. The audience walks away feeling like they really know him intimately. McGregor almost fumbles his way through the material as if you were having a quiet moment with a mate and this is the genius of his style of comedy.

Patricia Di Risio 

Photographer: Dru Maher-Brooks