Presented by Derwood McGlurk Productions
@ Arkaba – Top of the Ark
MONDAY 12th March

Two hours of Rob Hunter being a dick to people. What more could you ask for?

The show opens with Rob’s co-host. Luke McGregor is a funny, funny guy, and he warms the audience up brilliantly with his mix of faux awkwardness and anti-jokes. I actually enjoy McGregor’s style more than Hunter’s, he was just that good at delivery.

The show is broken into segments. Each comedian is invited on stage in turn, performing a couple of minutes of their stand-up act. Then Rob proceeds to rip them to shreds in front of the audience, under the guise of an interview. Between acts there is plenty of banter between Rob and Luke, which is consistently hilarious. The show closes with a comedy band, Smart Casual, performing a couple of songs. It’s a pretty strong line-up.

The first comedian is an Australian, Felicity Ward. She subjects us to a couple of minutes of her act, and I don’t take to her. She is that classic ‘talking about personal issues for laughs’ kind of comedian, which I don’t find amusing. It’s a tired bit, and pretty standard for your run-of-the-mill comedian. Hunter confronts her on this, and many other things.

He phrases his questions in a way that vaguely disguises them as poorly communicated, but they are undeniably offensive. At the start of the interview he uses his appearance to convey an air of innocence, confusing his guests as to his intentions. He gets more offensive with each question, and sometimes he appears to genuinely upset his guests. I’m not sure if it’s scripted, or if the guests are forewarned, but their offence comes across as real.

Because I dislike Felicity Ward, I enjoy his grilling of her. His next guest, Peter Coombe, is easier to like and it is a little harder to get into the spirit of the interview. It is still funny, but it feels uncomfortably close to bullying. It’s all in good fun, we assume, but it isn’t quite as enjoyable the second time around.

The last act is Dave Callan, a comedian who used to be on Rove. He’s a very funny guy, and is very endearing in his little bit before the interview. By now, though, Rob’s grilling is wearing just a little thin. I find that, while his jokes are intelligent, his questions are becoming repetitive and I am laughing less and less. I suppose there are only so many ways that you can offload thinly veiled insults as a questions and, after three interviews, Rob seemed to have run out of ideas.

The show is great in small doses, but I wouldn’t go see it twice. The guests kind of just sit there and take it, but I’m sure it would have been much more entertaining if they had stood up for themselves. Overall, it’s a funny show, and worth going to, but it faded towards the end. This might have been partly because of my personal loyalty to Dave Callan or because of the slight repetition of material. It’s the type of abuse that you love to see directed at someone you dislike, but I found it much less amusing when directed at someone I respect and admire.

As Smart Casual put it, Rob Hunter is a cunt. But he’s a funny one.