UTG @ Melbourne International Comedy Festival: Mark Watson – ‘Flaws’

April 1st, 2015

Brenton Harris

Melbourne International Comedy Festival
Comic: Mark Watson
Show: Flaws
Venue: ACMI Beyond

Mark Watson is a hardworking man of very many talents. With a decade of seasons at the Edinburgh Fringe, multiple 24-hour comedy marathons, TV appearances and a library of novels up his sleeve – as well as a family waiting for him at home – you’d expect that he’d be a confident chap quite chuffed with his lot in life, but he’s not. Or at least he wasn’t, for a while there anyway.

His new show Flaws is an hour of musings upon the nature of what he perceived to be his failings as a human being, and the physical and psychological impact his attempts to combat and/or quell these perceptions had on his life. It might not sound all that funny, but in the hands of Mark Watson, it proved to be absolutely hilarious.

Watson gained the crowd’s attention by starting the show running on a treadmill, before immediately engaging the sold-out house with some inspired crowd work (including a gag about some expected latecomers, which briskly evolved into an improvised parallel narrative as the show continued) before granting all in attendance a darkly humorous insight into the inner workings of his troubled mind.

One of the UK’s most brilliant comedic minds, Watson handled the serious topics of a diagnosed anxiety disorder and descent into alcoholism with wit and candor, drawing boisterous laughter as he recounted tails of extreme anger at inanimate objects, obsessive people pleasing and scarring innocent telemarketers for life.

An accomplished performer, Watson created a feeling of intimacy by holding his microphone low and maintaining open body language throughout the hour, gifting his reflections a distinctly human quality. Those reflections covered diverse ground, starting with anxiety disorder and progressing to his relationship with his four-year-old son, Madonna’s influence on his masturbatory habits as a teenager, his drunken habit of making text donations to charities, his dislike of overtly confident people and his fear that in having begun the road to recovery from his flaws, he might become one of them.

Highlighted by a genius crowd participation segment in which he did his best to recreate the Thomas The Tank Engine children’s film premiere that sent him over the edge and into madness (I won’t spoil it any further), Flaws is an expertly paced show that shines much needed light on a still rather taboo subject.

Flaws is blemish free.

‘Flaws’ is on now at ACMI Beyond. Click here for dates and ticket details.