Eli Matthewson Brings Award-Winning Show DADDY-SHORT LEGS to Edinburgh

Eli is almost old enough to be a "daddy", but Peter (his own father) is stealing some of his thunder...

Having won Best Show at New Zealand International Comedy Festival, Eli Matthewson: Daddy-Short Legs is surely one to see at this year's Edinburgh Fringe. Eli's new hour of stand-up is about the huge life-revelations that take place in the shittiest of cars.

Eli Matthewson is gay. Some of his best shows have been written around his coming out and his navigating his sexuality (The Year of Magical F*cking, An Inconvenient Poof). Just this year Eli was part of the first ever same-sex couple to compete on Dancing With the Stars NZ.

This year, Eli was planning on writing a show with no gay jokes: his own statement about working in an industry where he was constantly asked to 'turn up the gay' or 'turn down the gay'. For queer comedians, there is always the burden of policing how much of their queer identity they should or want to reveal. That show however, was not to be...

Ten years after coming out as gay to his father, his father came out as gay to Eli. Eli did NOT see this coming.

Eli's father, Peter, in his sixties, has embraced his sexuality after a lifetime of being a self-described "semi-conservative Christian".

Daddy-Short Legs is about trying to write a show in the wake of navigating the new, changed relationship with a father that flies between son, friend and mentor. As Eli ironically jokes, it's directly thanks to homophobia that he exists. Life might have been different if his dad had accepted his own identity sooner.

Eli Matthewson: Daddy-Short Legs play at the Wee Coo at Underbelly George Square (venue 300) from August 3.

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