Nath Valvo is the boy next door

Nath Valvo is the boy next door

“GAYS have become so lazy we can’t even be bothered mentally undressing each other anymore.” Nath Valvo is constantly shifting in his seat, like the young comic can’t quite settle.

“I have ADD, which is probably why I need to cover a different topic in every show,” he explains.

Since leaving cult comedy trio The Shambles in 2011, his shows have ranged from fag hags to Grindr and turning 30. This year, the Nova FM presenter is performing a show without a single overriding theme for the first time in his solo career.

Everyone comes in for a serve: vegans, Tinder users, Melbourne’s gym culture, and himself.

“I went on my first date aged 29. He had Kristin Chenoweth tickets, I couldn’t say no. The night was mortifying, it was my Vietnam,” he says.

While he won’t give much away, suffice to say it involves nudity and toilets.

Fans of Valvo’s breakout show Grindr: A Love Story will be reassured he has lost none of his passion for dick jokes. However, the infamous app is absent from the new show.

“I’ve milked it for all it’s worth,” he notes wryly. Indeed, he worries about being defined by it.

“I worry it’ll become Sadie to my John Farnham, and when I’m 60 people will be yelling out ‘do your Grindr stuff’,” he laughs.

His three biggest fears in life are dying in a plane crash without a shirt on, being buried alive topless, or being hit by a bus wearing just pants.

“I will stand up in front of everyone and say everything, but nudity in public scares the shit out of me,” he says.

A topless-only underwear party last Mardi Gras remains the most confronting night of his life, although weirdly, he recalls having to keep his shoes on, “because apparently that was the biggest health and safety concern in a nightclub full of gay men.”

Attempts at bulking up also failed when he vomited while a personal trainer was showing him how to use the gym equipment.

“Exercising in South Yarra is only one step less pretentious than going to Love Machine on a Sunday night,” he jokes.

“I have a problem with lazy comedy, not offensive comedy. Eddie Murphy’s homophobic stuff in the 1980s wouldn’t last a minute today.”

Indeed he believes stand-up is one of the few mediums where you can go wherever you want, and there are no sponsors or listeners to offend as there are on radio and TV. In that sense it is quite liberating, he notes: “I get bored if I go to a stand-up show and the comedian isn’t pushing it a bit.”

Boy Next Door opens at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival on March 27.

 

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