Nobody can accuse Cameron Murray of being too high energy: his Billy T Award-nominated show is what I’d call an understated meander. However, the whole presentation is better than my opening sentence would suggest.

He’s called his show Logical Oddity. At no point did he tell us the title of his show from the stage, but it’s an apt description of his approach. Cameron Murray’s brand is tried-and-true observational comedy and his leaps of logic are the best things in it. 

He presents us outrageous similes galore which simply beg justification: this he delivers in spades. He’s got a good handle on word play and double meaning, and he’s not above dropping a good hoary pun once in a while. There’s enough touchy subject material to keep us on edge (school bullying, the Holocaust etc) but he never keeps us there for long, quickly defusing the tension with lighter follow-up laughs: call it treading on reinforced thin ice. 

The subject matter is a little run-of-the-mill, however. His premise that “women … are a lot like second generation technology” inspires some clever punning but this, like so much of the show, sits within the stand-up’s realm of default topics: relationships, childhood, alcohol etc. While he landed a couple of serious laughs with a friendly audience of around 25 or 30, these sat among a forest of lines that were reasonably entertaining at best, just above mediocre at worst.

I can understand that his low-energy, slow-burner stand-up comedy style is a conscious choice and it’s nice not to be shouted at and cursed as an audience member. Cameron Murray is a practised comic who’s developed his stage presence well and his style will appeal to a lot of people. But while Logical Oddity is a perfectly pleasant and entertaining hour, it’s going to have a hard time standing out both among the group of Billy T nominees and in the wider festival. 
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