Dane Hiser: Settle Down - Review

Reviewed by Jasmine Crittenden
Dane Hiser’s comedic style is of the self-deprecating variety. His Sydney Comedy Festival show, held at Marrickville’s Factory Theatre in April, set the tone from the get-go.

While the audience watched a dark stage, embellished with only a television and a microphone stand, a voiceover struggled to announce the name of the main act, stumbling over several absurd yet laughable variations until Dane emerged.

Awkwardly introducing himself as a ‘ladies’ man’, the kind that women yearn to take home, he proved his point with the evidence: ‘Just look at me.’This ironic type of self-assessment resurfaced again and again during the next hour.

Dane certainly has the wry expressions and appropriate sense of timing to carry off such characterisation, but there were moments when the ‘ladies’ man’ quip lost its effect, simply because it was too-oft repeated.

Some of the most entertaining moments were those featuring the more quirky and creative ideas. The television was employed as a conduit for a series of rather bizarre and amusing, ‘self-promoting’ ads, and a song about a romance with an ‘IKEA’ girl, whose ‘heart comes in fifteen parts’ was undeniably clever, provoking quite a few laughs.

Dane is a comedian with promise. His script could do with some tightening and polishing, in order to cut out redundancies and increase the frequency of the wittier, more original material.