Published on The Pun, 29 March 2010

The unofficial title of Reginald D. Hunter’s show is Trophy Nigga, owing to the media’s habit of booking him for commentary only when race-related issues are in the news. His response to such requests is to insist that he be introduced as ‘Reginald – King of the Blacks!’, which tends to be a dealbreaker.

He has a reputation for controversy and an obvious, deep-seated belief that everyone should get their thoughts, no matter how unpopular, out in the open. A recent profile in The Age said that he has been labelled a misogynist by some thanks to his ‘referring to rape in a punchline’. Actually, in this show he jokes about rape no less than four times. The profile paraphrases him as saying that anyone seeing a comedy show might assume that the performer is joking. You might also assume that in a room with more than, say, ten women in it, at least one will have experienced sexual assault.

It really doesn’t help that his performance is completely off. At the beginning of the show he tells us that as it’s the last preview night, he has to get all of the mistakes out of his system. (I guess no one told him it was also media night.) He struggles to find a rhythm, which is almost forgivable, but when he asks an audience member for the time midway through the show he looks crestfallen upon learning that he still has 25 minutes to fill.

After a hefty dose of dead air while he stares off to stage left waiting for a techie to bring him a beer, Hunter proceeds to lurch from one random topic to the next. Tiger Woods, anal sex, stupid people, the Matrix movies – wait a minute, the Matrix movies? If you’re going to clutch at straws, try to pick one that’s less than seven years old. They get brittle with age.

Reginald, you may be the King of the Blacks, but your work is off-colour in more ways than one.