Paul Ego is a really funny man.  Now that might not seem like a surprise in a Comedy Festival chock full of local and international comedians.  Many of the sets I have seen have a tight well-crafted journey from situation to situation with the big payoff laugh.  Ego has a different approach. 

He spends a great deal of his set genuinely getting to know his audience.  He interacts with random men and women as he asks questions and turns their answers into immediate fun.  He dances on a word and sparkles with his twinkly naughty eyes as he affectionately makes ridiculous fun of his target. 

Paul Ego is an improviser who relishes the opportunity to show us how professional, skilled and entertaining a professional comedian he has become.  Widely known for as the Team One leader on TV3’s 7 Days, he does not disappoint in his one hour live set. 

It is quite a way into the set when he starts to tell his family stories and use his prepared themes. By then the audience rolls with the tales of his life as a ‘male’, his boys, his ineffective father role and his desire to have a plan B in his life.   

He explores the different roles he has thought about (if he wanted to change jobs) – Teacher, Policeman, Doctor – with reference to the audience.  Mainly the humour is safe and inoffensive with outrageous primary set ups, like “Doctors don’t need training”; “Teachers teach useless stuff”. He also sings and does a great crooner section as he mixes Crooner with Coroner.

It is all fun and certainly hits the funny bone of many of the middle NZ audience that fills the Rangatira Theatre at Q to capacity on opening night.  Best set piece of the gig is the relationship with his seven year-old boy and his inability to actually tell him a joke to make him laugh.  The long story finally turns and once again proves that fart jokes are the best! 

Paul Ego – Amazingballs is a skilful and powerful performance by NZ’s top professional comedian who knows his audience, plays to them with affection and makes them laugh: a great result! 

The show is just over an hour.  One of the highlights of my comedy festival.

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As a comedian well known to a large part of the New Zealand public – thanks to his role as a team captain on the TV3 panel show 7 Days – Paul Ego strides onto the stage of the Hannah Playhouse with an assured confidence.  

A slide-show analysis of the title Amazingballs begins the set with fairly mixed results, which leads into the main narrative thread of the hour, as Ego begins to look into other professions he could work in if he decides not to be a comedian anymore. This comes about, we are told, as a result of his seven year old son asking him to tell a joke and his subsequent failure to make him laugh.

From a police officer to a teacher, all the way through to a telemarketer, Ego approaches his show in a relaxed and calm manner, never really leaving the centre of the stage, and using the slide-show as his guide. Other than a couple of minor heckles from the back row, he sticks to his material without masses of audience interaction.

This is a slick and professional set, as Ego produces just enough laughs to keep his audience onside, yet at the same time he fails to elicit the belly laughs he would no doubt have been hoping for.

Whilst there are several segments of his material which hit the mark – in particular his experience of help lines and his ability to short-circuit the system – the show spends too long playing it safe. Not enough risks are taken and so whilst this is a pleasant enough show, it never quite reaches its full potential. Several stories and observations take a great deal of time to get through without the necessary punch line or satisfying pay off at the end of them.

His final recollection of how his son manages to make his joke sound funny to his friend is undoubtedly the highlight of the night and an extremely funny story to send the near-capacity crowd into the night with. 

Likeable and at ease with his audience, Paul Ego delivers a satisfying hour of stand-up which ends on a notable high note and will undoubtedly appeal to a broad audience. 

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