Matt Hoss is a man on a mission. A mission to create a fusion of comedy and a reflective, honest approach to the world of dating and being recently single. Based on real life events, he created this show as he was going through the toughest times of his life, so his comedy had a diverse range of being reflective and intense as he examined his love life, to cheeky and scatty comments to relieve the more dramatic moments. It did not matter what he mentioned, the pathos behind each punchline brought a different slant to his style of comedy. One moment he talked about personal heartbreak with the love of his life "Matilda", the next he was classing himself as the "King of too much" as he talked about his personal romantic gestures and the process of finding his "cool line" to keep a woman interested.
Half empowerment talk, half comedy show.
Hoss said that art is a way to get back control in your life. This felt very authentic, as he approached each story in an engaging and relatable way to keep the audience on side rather than try too hard to impress everyone. However, the style of the show seemed a little unpredictable to follow in places, so he ran the risk of losing our interest. Despite this, rather than let the material that didn’t work affect him personally, he was not afraid to highlight the failure and made a cheeky mention of it in an almost dismissive fashion, which charmed those watching it and regained control of his art form.
What made this a very unique show was that despite the rather scattered style of comedy which matched his life at the time, he made the material work for him in the sense he was not afraid to mention topics we could all relate to, such as mental health in men, self worth and going through hard times to come out a better person. In many ways, because the material was autobiographical, what emerged was something that was half empowerment talk, half comedy show. Even the awkward silences that emerged added to the quirky, but gentle nature Matt Hoss brought to the stage. At times he seemed uncertain of how far to push his material, but when he did find a good way of portraying it, his energy to every word mentioned became heightened and more relaxed than it was at the start.
This is a show that, with a bit more confidence in himself as a writer and performer, will grow stronger and seems best suited to those who want gentler approach in general to comedy as opposed to something more harsh in outlook.
