Having just hit his forties, and with enough exquisitely tailored suits to fill every boutique on Chapel Street, British comedy darling Tom Allen has finally moved out of home – and he’s bringing his domestic war stories to Australian shores.
Completely, the new comedy show by Tom Allen, explores the freedom of leaving home in your late thirties and marks a return down under following a five-year absence.
In the time since Tom last said g’day, he’s moved out, entered a relationship, and has been seen on British television screens as a guest of every major comedy show running. His sharp wits and quick retorts can also be heard on Virgin Radio, where he has just hosted a fabulous interview with fashion legend Dame Anna Wintour.
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All this to say, he is very busy. It helps that his parents are no longer floating around, he says.
“One of the pros of moving out,” he tells me from his living room in London, “is that you don’t get asked things all the time. My mum will often go ‘Where are you going tomorrow? What are you doing, who’s that? Do I know them?’ because a parent will treat you as a child, even if you are in your late thirties…”
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He highlights one con, meanwhile, is that he now has to take out his own bins – although his mother visits often enough that she interferes with this as well.
She will not be joining Tom on his Australia tour, which sees him performing in Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, and Sydney across April 15-25.
The new show is based on his recent experiences of being an adult, he says, as well as the adjustments of owning his own home, being in a relationship, and coming to terms with the death of his father.
“I’ve got this posh voice,” he explains, “but I’m from a very ordinary, working-class family and I’ve always been very theatrical. A bit of an outsider – I’ve had to adapt to live in a world of people who want me to be more, I don’t know, normal.”
While Tom can’t define what’s meant by ‘normal’, it’s fair to say he doesn’t fall into anything closely resembling that identity. As a working comic with decades of hard graft behind him, Tom’s rise to prominence has followed a startling upward trajectory since the late 2010s.
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Indeed, my first encounter with Allen on British television was an appearance on comedy news show Mock the Week in 2020. Seeing such a proudly camp, ridiculously well-dressed and genuinely very funny performer was a welcome change of tune in mainstream comedy.
Of the Completely tour down under, Tom is putting in the biggest number of shows in Melbourne, where he will be owning the stage at the city’s famed Malthouse Theatre for six nights.
Only one of his shows will be in Sydney, prompting me to ask his thoughts on the age-old debate of Sydney vs. Melbourne and whether he has a preference between the two.
“I suppose I should be more swayed toward Melbourne,” he offers, in light of the higher number of shows here in Naarm.
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He clarifies with a diplomatic response: “I like them both. Bland answer there. I like South Yarra,” Tom compromises, “the way people constantly seem to be wearing charcoal linen and wafting around, going to brunch.”
Sydney, however, holds a special place in the comedian’s heart following his last show there. The “ruggedness,” he says, of Australia’s largest city was a charming contrast to Melbourne’s more “Parisian” qualities.
Australia as a whole stands as an important proving ground for Tom, as it was through the many national comedy festivals here that he developed as a comedian and honed his craft.
He has many funny friends over here and is excited to touch base with Tom Ballard, Geraldine Hickey, as well as other members of the Australian comedy cream.
“Lovely, wonderful people, who were always so kind to me,” he says of the Aussie performers with whom he has come up throughout the past several years. “I hope to catch up with them, if they’ve got time to see me! Of course, they’re all very busy.”
The same can certainly be said of Tom Allen, as he embarks on the Australian tour of his new show Completely, beginning in Melbourne on 15 April.
Get your tickets to see Tom Allen live here.
