Nick Rado has a small audience for the premiere of Radology at San Fran, and he makes a virtue of it. He calls it a ‘soft launch’, tells us we made the cut after he purged the booking list of undesirables, and connects with each of us one by one. When he realises why I am here, he insists the show hasn’t started yet, so I feel mentioning this is not giving it away. His opening gambit is ad-lib, getting the feel of the room in a way that makes us warm to him.

Mind you, there are some subtle setups amid Nick’s casual chat, like the way he doubles over in shocked laughter (e.g. in response to discovering 10 percent of his audience is a critic). The anecdotes about parenting – the device dilemma; school lunch boxes; taking his son to a birthday party – also plant seeds that will sprout later.

Then there’s the son’s challenge to find ‘the perfect joke’, where the setup is also the punchline. Nick promises to deliver on that at the end of the show.

Radology proper starts with a deep dive into his Māori-Croatian heritage. Mispronunciation, murder and mystery are joked about and there’s mention of a great great grandmother who was a traditional healer. Types of arthritis comes up for discussion and the show takes an unexpected turn when Nick reveals he has inherited ankylosing spondylitis, and displays a picture of a very extreme case.

Are we laughing at misfortune here or using laughter as a coping mechanism? I sense we are choosing the latter as Nick shares his investigation of natural healing and wellbeing strategies – including what happened when he did a Fun Run on behalf of a bedridden hospital patient.  

Embracing embarrassing stories also leads Nick to recount a family holiday in Queenstown where wet weather made them opt for an Escape Room experience. You have to solve clues to get out. Generational humour abounds.

Somehow, ingeniously, the show climaxes with the promised ‘perfect joke’. Nick Rado’s Radology is stimulating and heart-warming.

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