Rhys Darby

This Way To Spaceship

Warners

There was this one time, right. I sat through an entire Rhys Darby comedy show. Well, I think it was a comedy show. Heaps of people were laughing. It seemed to be quite hilarious to many of the people there. Well, I survived to tell the tale at any rate. In fact, here’s my review of that evening here.

Now that show – well not that exact show, but one from that tour – is available on DVD. And so the question can continue now: is this funny? Is this comedy? Perhaps the only interesting thing about Rhys Darby is that the people that find him woefully unfunny can give the same reasons for that reaction as those that find him side-splittingly hilarious. Chiefly: he makes all the sound effects of things he’s miming – (I thought mime was supposed to be, you know, silent?) And he makes good use of his proud Kiwi accent eh. Like, rill gud.

His absurdist pratfall bumbling and squeaky-voice shrieking is not comedy. It is excruciating. It should not be applauded. But it is. Therefore he must be successful. Right? He is clubbing comedy over the head with a fake baseball bat – while making the swooshing, swishing noises to accompany the brutal gesture. Sad thing is – if he actually did that, acted out that very scene in that very way, he would get a laugh from his audience.

This might be the perfect DVD for you to give to someone in your family for Christmas. Preferably someone that does not live in the same house as you. Or you could send it to your worst enemy. That might mean Rhys Darby will be receiving a lot of copies of his own DVD. And by the way he smirks at his own (non) jokes and celebrates his 15 minutes on the back of Flight of the Conchords I think he’d rather like that.