EDINBURGH 2022: Eli Matthewson Guest Blog

Guest Blog - Eli Matthewson brings hilarious new stand-up show to the Fringe

Eli discusses what happened when he tried to write a show with no gay jokes.

Winner of Best Show 2021 at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival, Eli Matthewson blogs for Broadway World about bringing 'Daddy Short Legs' to the Fringe, toning up or down your sexuality and respecting someone else's 'coming out' story when writing a comedy show about it.

When I first started writing the hour of stand-up that has become Daddy Short-Legs I had a specific aim: I wanted to make an hour of comedy without any gay jokes. I've been doing stand-up for almost a decade, I've been on TV a fair bit in New Zealand, and I've always sat under the moniker of "gay comedian", a phrase I would like to go 'poof' and disappear. I've never even felt like I rabbit on about it too much, but I had a reviewer say I talked about coming out non-stop and I had a TV producer tell me to do fewer gay jokes after I sat on a panel where all the straight male comics around me made as many gay jokes as they pleased. Apparently when a straight man makes a gag about giving a blow job that's a-okay, but when I talk about having a boyfriend that's a little too much!

I've also been in the opposite situation, told by a director to be more sassy, more colourful, to bring more camp - each a coded way of saying "tone up the gay please, we brought you here for diversity". It can feel like I'm between a rock and straight place - show us your gay in a fun way that gets our diversity tick but don't say anything too gay because the audience cannot possibly relate to that. I don't think it's right that I should feel that way, but it's made me determined to show those people up. I was going to make a show where people would have no idea I was gay, unless they noticed I have clean nails, smelt good and don't perform with my obnoxiously huge iPhone in my front pocket like straight male comics always seem to.

Unfortunately, my plan was stopped in its tracks as something happened in my family that I truly could not ignore. My father came out of the closet in his sixties, after a lifetime of going to church and keeping his true self totally secret. For sure, part of me thought "hey, that's my thing"... but once I got over myself I came to realise the massive journey my father had been on. His years of struggling with this and finally being able to open up about it made my silly issues with TV people wanting me to be more or less camp seem... pretty insignificant. I never saw it coming, and it was such a significant event in my life that I couldn't not talk about. I no longer felt any desire to meet some straight-people expectation, I just wanted to talk about my real life onstage because it felt bloody interesting.

Except I wasn't just telling my own life story, I was writing a show that was telling my Dad's story. I suffer from a sickness I think most comedians experience where any major event in my life immediately has me thinking about how I can spin the experience into a show or a joke, and that's just what happened when Dad told me. I knew I needed his permission though - so I made sure I had a show that shared my experience and didn't try and exploit his. I warned him about the jokes, and he saw one of the earliest versions of the show. The good news is my Dad and I have many things in common, one big one being that we don't mind a little bit of attention. In fact, we thrive on it. Dad has seen the show a bunch of times, and he loves it. He says it's the most authentic, personal hour of comedy I've done, and he laughed the whole way through. So please, listen to his glowing review, give him a bit more attention, and come along why don't ya!

Eli Matthewson: Daddy Short Legs, Underbelly George Square (The Wee Coo), 8.50pm, 3-29 August (not 17)

Photo credit: Caitlin Murray

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