Jack McGee
When Kipling DC and Keegan Thomas run out at the start of their stand up two-hander Skuxx Deluxe, shouting and hollering like we’re just about to watch a boxing match, I frantically scrawl at the top of my notebook - MEN - all caps, circled, full stop. There are no windows in the Cavern Club to let the testosterone out. I don’t regret this initial evaluation, this show is in fact - MEN - all caps, circled, full stop. But it works.
Does this show feel like an evening spent in a boys locker room? Pretty much. Is that my worst nightmare? It’s up there. Over a day later, I’m still left trying to figure out the magic trick. Trying to put together why the vibe of the show, despite being - MEN - is so endearing. Perhaps it’s in this performative, yet vulnerable, masculinity that the two comedians embody the spirit of Skuxx. I think vulnerable is the operative word here. While they find plenty of humour in the (often sexual) misadventures of their punching bag past’s, it’s only in the retelling of their most egregious regrets that either of the two comedian’s are either truly cruel to themselves. There’s a level of camp to this, while it’s clear that Thomas and DC aren’t the horny teenagers they once were, they aren’t overcompensating for it. They manage to comfortably reassure us that we’re in safe hands without pointing at their teenage antics and condescendingly yelling - but I’m better than that now!
For a show full of stories of these two men trying way too hard (shout out to Maeve O’Connell who in Twilight: The Loca Edition summed up all of NZ Fringe by saying “there’s a lot of ‘pick me’s’ in this audience”), DC and Thomas don’t feel like tryhards. They’re comfortable, we’re comfortable, it’s a really good time. Maybe it’s much simpler then all of that, maybe they’re just funny guys and that’s how they get away with it.
Kipling DC has the first set, and right of the gate I'm impressed by his crowd work. He calls on me, I give him a steaming hot pile of nothing, and he still manages to find the laugh. I will say, DC clearly has a masochistic streak, as despite burning his hand on the hot stove of my audience-interaction-stage-fright, he keeps coming back for more. I am one of three men named ‘Jack’ in the room, and together we form the holy trinity of DC’s audience-provided-content machine.
One notable story DC tells early in his set, is about the gifts he bought one of his first girlfriends - namely a Pascall Party Pack and a Minion’s Toothbrush. This story is paid off joyously later in the show, where DC takes a sharp left turn out of nowhere and becomes the host of Who Wants to Win a Pascall Party Pack? I am proud to say that all three of us Jacks stood up under pressure, and I was the proud recipient of a Pascall Party Pack. Must say, I’m jealous of Jack #3 who received a Minions toothbrush.
DC is unpredictable to watch, and light on his feet. Sometimes he’ll blatantly lie to us (DC is, despite what I believed for about fifteen seconds, not Neill Finn’s son) before quickly tossing a new truth or half truth at us and squeezing in two different punchlines as we struggle to catch up. He’s fantastic at varying his flow/pace, a master in setting false expectations of where a story is going before pivoting in an instant to find an unexpected laugh. Occasionally this borders on being a little ‘LOL So Random XD’ but DC’s so effortlessly charismatic that he gets away with it. Somehow a joke involving a feline with a machine gun going “Catatatata” gets an honest laugh out of me, and you know what? If you can sell that, all power to you.
DC hands the show over to Keegan Thomas at the halfway mark, and it’s time I give you some quick context. I’ve reviewed Thomas before a couple of times now. Last year I reviewed Enter Sandman, his Adam Sandler themed solo show, and a couple of hours before Skuxx Deluxe I saw him in the charming panel show Don’t Quit Your Day Job (where he attacked the honour of theatre critics live on stage and made himself an enemy for life). I was broadly positive on Sandman, but definitely had a lot of notes. It’s really exciting for me to get to write a sequel review, a year later, seeing how Thomas has grown and changed.
Short answer - he’s changed a lot! His Skuxx set gives me pretty much everything I was left wanting from Sandman. In short, he’s far more confident, spends more time sharing lived-in personal anecdotes and less time pre-contextualising his jokes (funny coming from me). The old skin isn’t fully shed, there’s still the occasional stumble, but it’s a great set. Whereas DC likes to pull us all over the place, for the most Thomas tells longer-form stories. They bleed together really well, putting together a great picture of who he was as a teenager. There’s a slew of small scale connections/tiny little pay-offs scattered throughout, all stemming from this central image of Thomas being a scrawny, slightly nerdy kid, who watched 8 Mile far too young.
I think it’s also finally time for me to make a confession. I am 95% sure that I did extra-curricular drama classes with Thomas as a child. I was a good few years younger than him, so to me, he was always one of the cool teenagers. This added a unique layer to his set for me, as the image I had of him during the era directly conflicts with the humiliating stories he tells about himself. I’ll move on because this is an audience experience pretty specific to me, but it was a nice moment of retrospective empathy - turns out even the cool kids are secretly cringe, they just don’t tell you about it.
A lot of the joy of Thomas’s comedy comes from its specificity. Be it Step-Up 3D on a teenage date, or an in-depth description of a vintage couch defiled with penile-blood, the details fully pull you into the stories, and often serve as great punch-lines. I will admit, the one point where the seams showed for me is when Thomas tells a brief story about going to an ACT rally (for research, he insists) and supposedly ends up running into David Seymour’s wife. Remembering that quote where Seymour claims he’d give it all up for love, and thus remembering he’s not married, this pulls me out of it. Is this basically the definition of a nitpick? Yes. I don’t mind being lied to, that’s comedy. I think I'm just sad that one of these details didn’t ring true for me, as so many of the rest of them did.
So with a quick pause to account for the various biases accumulated - Pascall Party Pack bribery, pre-adolescent social awe of Thomas, getting bullied for reviewing a talk show - we can close the review on a big old thumbs up. Skuxx Deluxe is pretty skuxx, hope I get to review more shows by these two in future.
For a show full of stories of these two men trying way too hard (shout out to Maeve O’Connell who in Twilight: The Loca Edition summed up all of NZ Fringe by saying “there’s a lot of ‘pick me’s’ in this audience”), DC and Thomas don’t feel like tryhards. They’re comfortable, we’re comfortable, it’s a really good time. Maybe it’s much simpler then all of that, maybe they’re just funny guys and that’s how they get away with it.
Kipling DC has the first set, and right of the gate I'm impressed by his crowd work. He calls on me, I give him a steaming hot pile of nothing, and he still manages to find the laugh. I will say, DC clearly has a masochistic streak, as despite burning his hand on the hot stove of my audience-interaction-stage-fright, he keeps coming back for more. I am one of three men named ‘Jack’ in the room, and together we form the holy trinity of DC’s audience-provided-content machine.
One notable story DC tells early in his set, is about the gifts he bought one of his first girlfriends - namely a Pascall Party Pack and a Minion’s Toothbrush. This story is paid off joyously later in the show, where DC takes a sharp left turn out of nowhere and becomes the host of Who Wants to Win a Pascall Party Pack? I am proud to say that all three of us Jacks stood up under pressure, and I was the proud recipient of a Pascall Party Pack. Must say, I’m jealous of Jack #3 who received a Minions toothbrush.
DC is unpredictable to watch, and light on his feet. Sometimes he’ll blatantly lie to us (DC is, despite what I believed for about fifteen seconds, not Neill Finn’s son) before quickly tossing a new truth or half truth at us and squeezing in two different punchlines as we struggle to catch up. He’s fantastic at varying his flow/pace, a master in setting false expectations of where a story is going before pivoting in an instant to find an unexpected laugh. Occasionally this borders on being a little ‘LOL So Random XD’ but DC’s so effortlessly charismatic that he gets away with it. Somehow a joke involving a feline with a machine gun going “Catatatata” gets an honest laugh out of me, and you know what? If you can sell that, all power to you.
DC hands the show over to Keegan Thomas at the halfway mark, and it’s time I give you some quick context. I’ve reviewed Thomas before a couple of times now. Last year I reviewed Enter Sandman, his Adam Sandler themed solo show, and a couple of hours before Skuxx Deluxe I saw him in the charming panel show Don’t Quit Your Day Job (where he attacked the honour of theatre critics live on stage and made himself an enemy for life). I was broadly positive on Sandman, but definitely had a lot of notes. It’s really exciting for me to get to write a sequel review, a year later, seeing how Thomas has grown and changed.
Short answer - he’s changed a lot! His Skuxx set gives me pretty much everything I was left wanting from Sandman. In short, he’s far more confident, spends more time sharing lived-in personal anecdotes and less time pre-contextualising his jokes (funny coming from me). The old skin isn’t fully shed, there’s still the occasional stumble, but it’s a great set. Whereas DC likes to pull us all over the place, for the most Thomas tells longer-form stories. They bleed together really well, putting together a great picture of who he was as a teenager. There’s a slew of small scale connections/tiny little pay-offs scattered throughout, all stemming from this central image of Thomas being a scrawny, slightly nerdy kid, who watched 8 Mile far too young.
I think it’s also finally time for me to make a confession. I am 95% sure that I did extra-curricular drama classes with Thomas as a child. I was a good few years younger than him, so to me, he was always one of the cool teenagers. This added a unique layer to his set for me, as the image I had of him during the era directly conflicts with the humiliating stories he tells about himself. I’ll move on because this is an audience experience pretty specific to me, but it was a nice moment of retrospective empathy - turns out even the cool kids are secretly cringe, they just don’t tell you about it.
A lot of the joy of Thomas’s comedy comes from its specificity. Be it Step-Up 3D on a teenage date, or an in-depth description of a vintage couch defiled with penile-blood, the details fully pull you into the stories, and often serve as great punch-lines. I will admit, the one point where the seams showed for me is when Thomas tells a brief story about going to an ACT rally (for research, he insists) and supposedly ends up running into David Seymour’s wife. Remembering that quote where Seymour claims he’d give it all up for love, and thus remembering he’s not married, this pulls me out of it. Is this basically the definition of a nitpick? Yes. I don’t mind being lied to, that’s comedy. I think I'm just sad that one of these details didn’t ring true for me, as so many of the rest of them did.
So with a quick pause to account for the various biases accumulated - Pascall Party Pack bribery, pre-adolescent social awe of Thomas, getting bullied for reviewing a talk show - we can close the review on a big old thumbs up. Skuxx Deluxe is pretty skuxx, hope I get to review more shows by these two in future.