Horndog is Rose Matafeo’s Moment

New Zealand-born comic Rose Matafeo’s show Horndog was a highlight of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe and it is also one of the London Evening Standard’s top picks to see in the UK capital.

“Insatiable comedy fans will be delighted to know that the fun does not stop when the Fringe does,” Zoe Paskett writes for the Evening Standard. “In fact, it’s just the beginning. Maybe you couldn’t make it up to Scotland (still crying about this), or missed the boat on that sell-out show. Maybe you just want to do it all over again. Whatever your reasons, you can catch this lot when they’re back.”

According to Paskett: “[Matafeo] is drawing wide praise for her show Horndog. With mid-20s angst and packed full of pop culture references that many will relate to, Matafeo is a natural on the stage.”

In an Evening Standard review of Horndog, Bruce Dessau wrote that the best comedies are those that make you laugh uncontrollably while wearing their sophistication lightly.

“And that’s where Matafeo fits in,” he said.

“This Kiwi livewire has been on the cusp of breaking through in the UK for a couple of years and Horndog feels like her moment. She quickly admits at the start – after playing ping pong with fans as they enter – that the lusty-sounding title is a mis-sell. She is not raunchy, she claims to be ‘sensitive’. There is more here about crochet than there is about sex.

“The show is performed at a ferocious pace. At the start you think that Matafeo is never going to be able to sustain the sparky delivery. If anything she ramps the exuberance up towards the finish when she neatly ties up any loose ends.

“It is not all bouncy positivity. She has a nice line in dissing inspirational quotes on pencil cases and she references #metoo lightly yet seriously.”

Original article by Zoe Paskett and Bruce Dessau, London Evening Standard, August 16, 2018.