REVIEW: RHYS NICHOLSON - SEMINAL

4 out of 5 stars

Fresh off his run at Brisbane Comedy Festival last year and playing a variety of venues across the festival, Rhys Nicholson is a clever, insightful and sassy comic in his latest show Seminal, which it is.

You know him from TV shows on ABC, SBS and Channel 10, his web series, his work with fellow comedian Joel Creasey and his six previous shows since 2012, where he won Best Newcomer at the Sydney Comedy Festival, and has well deservedly been nominated for many more  awards since then.

He’s strongly opinionated and will share that and his perspective with audiences over the hour you spend together, and given he publicly married fellow gay comedian Zoe Coombs Marr at the comedy festival two years ago, it’s not surprising he shares his stories about his journey since marriage equality was legalized last year, and the reactions he observed before, after and during.

He’s engaging and relatable, while still going on a rant and tangents about his thoughts on drugs and mind palaces. His sex jokes are both subtle and so loud and proud they should get their own post code, in a show that will resonate with millennials and all adults.  Get ready to laugh at things that are mean and that you probably shouldn’t, but you’ll laugh yourself silly. His throwaway lines at the end of jokes are often his darkest and his most savage,

The man with the most wonderful lisp is cynical and a little bit nihilistic in his comedy (he gave up hope for Lent), he gets real on the plebiscite and he lies to his dream journal. As a fiery millennial, he takes aim at right wing voters and the hate speech No Voters cast upon his people (the gays, not white men) and how their putrid, poisonous words hurt young vulnerable people. He scoffs at the reality of the sex education system and how it isolates and doesn’t support same sex oriented students, and that he still cannot donate blood in this country.

It’s not all serious, but it is all important. His wit and charm engages the room but you could hear a pin drop when he speaks seriously. The entire show has a strong narrative and a hilarious ending, with highlights including how he proposed to his boyfriend after 19 champagnes, he’s scared of balloons but he doesn’t know why, and he loves his country like he loves elderly members of his family, loved but full of some dark 1950s bollocks, or that he loves his Thermomix like his friends love their kids.

Come help him celebrate his year of saying no, to things like house parties and dinner parties (a smart casual hostage situation).

Catch him at the festival until April 22 – tickets and more info: https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2018/shows/seminal

This article first appeared at: http://www.theatrepeople.com.au/rhys-nicholson-seminal/ on 18 April 2018.