Purple is the Gayest Colour

Alayne Dick never forgets an insult. In fact, she wrote a whole show about it, coming at you as part of the NZ International Comedy Festival. She describes herself at the start as “a lesbian who makes jokes on the internet, which makes men on the internet mad”. It’s easy to see how this adorably nerdy librarian in a purple T-shirt, shorts, high-top sneakers, and rainbow socks, with big glasses, lusciously long hair, and an obviously genital surname might upset fragile male (and probably some female) egos. She’s smart, sassy, and a whole bunch funnier than every incel on the web.

I feel seen when she starts talking about reviewers needing to use her surname in their reviews and its hilarious results: “Dick has us hungry for more” or, less kindly but perhaps more appropriately, “Dick always disappoints”.

The lack of pockets in jeggings, Vin Diesel’s ludicrously low voice, being an only child, the creepiness of pre-schoolers, Beaver Town Blenheim, the Boomer obsession with small-town murder TV, and many other subjects come under Dick’s frenetic but laser-like focus over the course of this comedy hour.

Occasional bursts of modern jazz dance accompany the high-energy delivery, but it’s not all frivolous. Like all good self-effacing stand-up, there are moments of intimacy and pathos as Dick relates her teenage dive into gay fan fiction due to the lack of good queer media – apart from Glee, obviously – and her relationship with her stoic, uncommunicative dad.

I particularly relate to her description of going to an uptight all-girls school that was simultaneously conservative and gay, then becoming a convincing vegetarian to qualify for the limited number of much tastier non-meat meals in her university hall canteen. And I’m totally going to take up her suggestion of making sure I have uninvited chaotic exes to yell “I object!” at my next wedding.

Dick doesn’t disappoint, it turns out.