Horndog

Rose Matafeo defines horniness not as a physical state, but as a hyper-fixation—specifically, the exhausting tendency of young women to throw all their emotional energy into things that do not deserve it. It is an anxiety-fueled perspective that shapes her stand-up debut, where the central boast is that she has kissed exactly nine people in her twenty-eight years. She treats those kisses like restaurant wine-tasting, noting that while she might have opinions on the vintage, she has never actually sent one back.

Recorded at the Ambassadors Theatre in London’s West End, the show captures the manic, theatrical energy that won Matafeo the Best Show prize at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2018. Her performance is structured around millennial obsessions, from the weirdly clinical language of period-tracking apps to the struggle of being a heterosexual feminist. (As she points out, she would likely sleep with the patriarchy if it had nice arms.) Rather than a standard relationship post-mortem, the material works as a celebration of obsessive devotion, whether directed at Franz Ferdinand, crocheting, or subpar men.

At the time of filming in early 2020, the New Zealand comic was transitioning from live-performance darling to international television creator, prepping her sitcom Starstruck. This taping captures her theatrical, prop-heavy performance style, complete with retro WordArt graphics and a frantic energy that feels less like a polished lecture and more like a series of increasingly brittle revelations.