Big Dumb Cats - Daniel John Smith (NZICF)

We are all just big dumb cats, stum­bling around on two legs, expect­ing our feline over­lords to hunt food for us to keep us alive. Daniel John Smith’s Big Dumb Cats is part cat facts, part fam­ily par­able, and all great com­edy with a poignant mes­sage.

Smith’s in the midst of an excit­ing office fash­ion show when he gets a two word text from his moth­er that really changes the vibe of the whole thing. How­ever, not deterred, he fin­ishes the fash­ion show with us, describ­ing the cloth­ing he shows off, and the emo­tion­al jour­ney he goes on.

With a name­less cat, a con­sid­er­able seg­ment about homo­pho­bia and a homemade com­ic­book vil­lain called Anal Man (the vil­lain is almost exactly who you think it is), and more talk about but­tholes than I would have expec­ted, Big Dumb Cats is cer­tainly out of the ordin­ary, but I really enjoyed it. Smith is a very clev­er comedi­an, with some truly fant­ast­ic sideb­its – I per­son­ally loved his piece about Tele­tu­b­bies and vicious murder.

The show’s a little dark­er than you might expect, con­sid­er­ing the title, but it’s no less funny for it, and bal­ances com­edy and ten­sion very, very well. If you’re look­ing for a queer comedi­an with an utterly bizarre (and I mean that in a good way) sense of humour, check out Big Dumb Cats!

 

Big Dumb Cats is on at the Fringe Bar until the 18th of May, 2019. Get your tick­ets from the Com­edy Fest­iv­al web­site.