Mickey D’s extremely crass scatological humour is sometimes just disgusting without being particularly funny (unless you’re into that sort of thing?) but usually he manages to tick both boxes.  

Mickey D narrowly defies the Aussie bloke stereotype – e.g. he’s blokey and crude, but perfectly at ease complimenting a man on his nice shoulders or apologising to his wife. His meat-and-potatoes subject matter (accents, drugs, booze, racism, gender politics, marriage, piss and shit), is imbued with his unique maniacal bent. 

Raucous, cheeky, crass, rambling, he gets completely carried away in the moment when it comes to anything involving farts, shit and vomit. But he’s not one-dimensional; he has a sharp self-awareness that allows him to transcend the boyish potty-humour to offer some insightful observations on human interaction and those moments we have with ourselves when we think no one’s looking.

Mickey D has an honesty about him that is humbling and makes me forget to take myself too seriously for all of 80 minutes. 

I laugh so hard I am fighting for air a couple of times, and frequently tear-stained at his great impersonations and side-splitting accents – specifically South African, Birmingham and Maori Boy – and his daughter’s dance moves.  

He talks about the ‘lonely time’ before he had a wife and his now-two-year-old daughter, back when life was about reaching the next level in excessive drinking and drug-taking and the inevitable consequences. As much as it cracks him up thinking back to that phase of his life, he genuinely doesn’t seem to miss it. But he likes the fact that it’s there to provide endless comedy fodder in the form of hilarious anecdotes detailing the embarrassing things one does when shit-faced. 

He roams captivatingly between one subject and the next, from changing nappies to gambling, from the pitfalls of married life to the dangers of doing stand-up in small Australian towns.

As you’d expect, Mickey has some charming (and not-so-charming but funny nonetheless) material on fatherhood and his irreverent approach to child-raising. His wife, whom he clearly loves to bits, gets a right razzing, as do South Africans, Australians and cats. He’s got a soft spot for New Zealanders so we get off lightly. 

Mickey D treads a fine line of propriety, sometimes, but mostly he blatantly crosses it. He lets fly way more than his fair share of disgusting, offensive, politically incorrect gags, and gets away with it, such is his charismatic candour – he has his opening-night Auckland audience eating out of his hand.

If you are: a cat lover who can’t take a joke; allergic to swearing; or too sophisticated to stoop to fart jokes – then you won’t like Mickey D. Everyone else, roll on up.

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