Gerard McCulloch

So here I was in a small room in the basement of Victoria Hotel, (just round the corner from the Town Hall, a pretty ordinary looking place that seems to have transformed itself into about 50 locations for comedy during the festival, all of them spitting out chortling punters at regular intervals). And here I was ready to see a comedian I had heard absolutely nothing about, an experience, I have come to believe, that should be part of anyone's film/arts/comedy festival season.

The warm up music was excellent. That may seem unimportant, but for stand-ups it can be crucial for building pre-show hype, especially when you have no idea what to expect. When Gerard arrived it was indeed an anticlimax of sorts (a fact he later gagged on). He explained to us that it was "Press Night" (which could explain the unusually healthy numbers, I thought) before firing a few shots at the reviewers in the audience. I liked him already.

He continued to take risks as the show went on. On the night I was there, he took action against a rather noisy neighbor, which I think everyone can relate to. I have no idea whether he will do that particular gag on subsequent nights. In fact I don't really know whether or not the gag was rehearsed when I saw it. But I suspect he was genuinely improvising, and the whole audience, including me, was grateful for it. It's that sort of bravery that reminded me that live stand up really can go places that TV just can't.

Gerard delivered just over an hour of sharp observational humour that made for a good, if not exceptional, night of comedy. He got annoyed about things, which is fairly standard for comedians, but he has the ability to point out things that you did know, but didn't realise that you knew. He was clever but not condescending to the audience. His trick of "knowing something about every country in the world" fell flat the night I attended, but Gerard recovered immediately so it didn't really matter.

He wasn't as relaxed or as seamless as of some of the really big names, but I think its well to remember that some of those comedians have been doing roughly the same format for 5 or 10 years. In my opinion stand up is quite awesomely hard to do expertly. While Gerard is experienced at comedic writing (he's written for Rove, among others) , and to a lesser extent performing, at the stand-up game he is relatively new. And bearing this in mind he's one that's worth a look now and in the future.

Gerard McCulloch plays at the Victoria Hotel, 215 Little Collins Street, until Sunday 29 April. Book at the Comedy Festival Booking Office at the Town Hall, Swanston Street or through his Comedy Festival page. He's also got a MySpace site.

Review by Mark Tregonning