Fergus Neal - Boy
Goodwill Club, The Rechabite
Friday, February 13 2026
Fergus Neal, podcaster, writer for The Weekly, and Melburnian by way of Geelong, brought his show Boy to The Rechabite’s Goodwill Club for its Perth debut. Neal started with some local content, but this portion of the night was quite short, since he relied on cutting-edge goss from the streets from his WA-based grandparents.
The routine proper began with Neal’s diagnosis of ADHD at the ripe age of 29. He observed how, in decades past, one would have had to work for such an outcome, either by completely trashing a high school classroom or having a semi-ridiculous bogan name.
Neal asked the room whether there were any men present and received a very muted reply. Later in the set, he asked which were the good suburbs in Perth, to which one wag replied, “Leaving!” He countered that he was gaslit by his own audience. For a mid-evening Friday slot, usually peak hour during a festival, tonight’s crowd seemed surprisingly timid.
With his podcast and media writing, Neal had collaborated with various minor Australian celebs, including Raygun, who had sued another comedian our host was mates with—always a popular move in the arts sector—and Bob Katter. Katter had liked a social media skit Neal had produced before he had sent a video message full of North Queensland ridiculousness, of which only the audio was cleared by the lawyers for use in tonight’s show.
The thesis of the evening came into view when, as part of Neal’s podcast work, the manosphere and the alt-right were brought to the fore. Mothers of young teenagers had subsequently reached out to Neal for advice on how to break their boys away from that toxicity. Neal promptly stated to these parents that he was not a psychologist, yet also provided them evidence-based, peer-tested examples of how the tech companies had flooded the zone with this detritus.
It had been harder to radicalise the youth in the long-ago times of 2010, when the most technology on a Nokia brick was the game Snake, and the bad actors would have to recruit one user one phone call at a time.
Neal’s advice was to be direct with the kids as to why they liked the content—the reasons may turn out simpler than feared—while also finding alternate male role models to suggest following. Intersecting with a B-plot regarding his girlfriend starting out as an influencer, the new role models could very well have included the original Wiggles.
An engaging, energetic, and curious host, Neal brought forward a solid foundation of strong material, which appeared undercut by tonight’s slightly muted audience. It would be good to see how this would go in a moderately more raucous environment.