August 14, 2026 at Assembly George Square, The Crate
In the first half of Eli Matthewson’s show, he apologizes for being a bit too edgy when some of his stories have mild references to sex. By the end, he’s turned his show into so much absolute filth that even veteran fans of stand-up stories about sex and injury were cringing. It’s absolutely enormous fun.
Matthewson has pulled together a series of autobiographical anecdotes that are fairly loosely connected, but are all funny, and get increasingly edgy (in a “don’t bring your children to see this if you don’t want them to hear about sex” way, not in a right-wing podcaster way) as they go along. Though he starts out pretty dark, going in immediately with references to the imminent global apocalypse. He then tempers this by discussing the meaning behind phone backgrounds for a bit, before ramping back up the tension. He seems to know how to keep the pressure levels balanced.
He covers topics like moving from New Zealand to London – the cultural differences and the Visa process, coming out as gay, what it’s like to have been in a relationship for nearly ten years, doing stand-up in a situation that is not suited to one’s stand-up style (as seen in one terrible night in a dark restaurant), the best terminology for open relationships, and aforementioned routines about sex and the end of the world. There is, as the title warns, some blood (in the story, not on stage).
Matthewson’s been doing stand-up for over fifteen years now, and he commands the attention of the room – well, shipping container – with the presence of someone who’s had lots of practice at telling stories in many weirder places than shipping containers. He casually engages the audience on the most awkward subjects, but it hardly feels like crowd work, as he fully controls every interaction, and keeps them short. He is, as they say, a safe pair of hands. It’s a great way to spend an hour.
Dave Baillie