OBSERVER: Tiny King
Nathan Hugh Robért returned to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival with a reworked version of Tiny King, directed by Taylor Griffiths at the Motley Bauhaus in Carlton.
Is it a play, stand-up, or a self-deprecating monologue with a dash of audience participation?
Honestly, it’s none of the above—and hard to define. What it is, though, is deeply personal. Robért lays himself bare—especially when it comes to being short, sexy/not sexy, exposing his vulnerability and flaws with disarming honesty.
And it takes deadpan to the next level—Robért never even cracks a smile. It was intriguing that, not once but twice, audience members felt compelled to apologise for laughing … at a comedy show!
The striking thing about Tiny King lies in the intense awkwardness of it all. The uneasy dread of lurking audience participation at any moment, paired with Robért’s sense of despair, creates a kind of shared social anxiety.
His feigned frustration that the audience is laughing in all the wrong places—ironically, very funny—only heightens the tension. We feel as though we’re letting him down, rather than he’s failing us. Is that genius?
The narrative conceit—Robért as a dethroned monarch who lost his kingdom’s gold in a bad investment—doesn’t entirely land. Most of us already feel like royalty in our own little domains, and the metaphor doesn’t add much. The more relatable thread is simply the need to make a living—and if creating the best comedy show of all time is your ambition, are you setting yourself up for failure?
Tiny King is absurd, deeply awkward, and strangely captivating. While his spontaneous, witty and slightly defensive ad-lib responses bring levity, a little more content and an upbeat ending could propel this into the next realm.
Review by Beth Klein