Mark Watson - Before It Overtakes Us

Mark Watson’s Before It Overtakes Us covers everything from relationship regrets to fear of airplane travel – and still finds time to explore the seedy underbelly of the corporate comedy gig economy. Typical of Waston’s “neurotic and breathless” style – his words, not mine – he flits erratically between subjects and about the stage. Peppering the show with meta-analyses, Watson externalises his concerns that the jokes might be too personally revealing or anglocentric to strike a chord with Australian audiences to amusing, self-deprecating effect.

Watson is at his best when working the crowd. His efforts to prove that any given audience member has a job more noble than a comedian may not have borne the fruit he expected – after he unwittingly plucked a 51-year old retiree from the front row – but it did provide the quip-happy comic with a wonderfully guiltless punching bag.