The show opens unexpectedly with a guest appearance / curtain raiser by local standup comic Sowmya Hiremath. Cool, calm and collected, Hiremath rattles off one-liners on a sequence of familiar topics: Tinder, house prices, dating, Wellington bus services, TradeMe, my mother is hassling me to get married.

Familiar they might be, but there’s an interesting bite to some of the jokes that leaves me wanting to hear her dig deeper. She gets a good reception from the audience, even though 15 minutes of time fitted in before the headline act is not, let’s face it, an easy slot.

Now it’s Tui Christie’s turn. She starts off with a great piece of sustained invention. It’s funny, clever and well-delivered, and she keeps it going for just long enough. It’s a good beginning which promises well for the next 45 minutes.  

Being young, good at school (although she claims to have peaked at 12) and coming from a loving home may not be the best background for a stand-up comic. After all – what has she got to kvetch about? Christie says as much early on, making a joke of it.

Her comedic ace in the hole, one of them at least, is her stage persona of angst-ridden teenager. We’ve come across this before, but not from the teenager’s perspective. This gives her show an edge of originality that helps it to stand out from the crowd.

One of her persona’s useful aspects is that angst-ridden teenagers don’t need huge real-world problems or adversaries to complain about. They are perfectly capable of generating their own woes just by living ordinary teenage lives. Christie proves that, handled with the right touch, including a quantum of self-awareness, this can be a fruitful source of material.

She’s got the material, and also a good stage presence: a well judged and flexible mix of self-confidence and self-deprecation. She’s prepared to throw in the odd jab of malice as well, to pepper the mix. 

The format of Gifted is fairly standard – a topic is floated, Christie riffs on it for a while, then segues on to the next one. The connecting link is her take on life as a teenager dealing with a perpetual existential crisis, although she is happy to pick up gags wherever she finds them.

She varies the pace by mixing up comic modes – there’s straight stand-up, a skit on teenage life in the 80s, an adult colouring book, and more. 

Some of the material works for me, some of it doesn’t. At her best, Christie is outstanding – the concepts are great, the one-liners are sharp and funny. There are passages that drag – the bit about her early life, for example. They’ve got potential, but it seems to me she doesn’t always hit the vein of humour. The audience as a whole may not share this view – it starts laughing loudly from the get-go, and doesn’t stop until Christie leaves the room. 

Christie is 18 years old and this is her debut solo show. I mention this as an interesting fact, not because there’s any need to make allowances for her age and experience. Smart, charming and, yes, gifted, she proves with this show that she’s already got what it takes to hold her own in any company of comics.

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