Stand-up comedy has to be the toughest form of theatre to carry off successfully. Instead of talking to someone else onstage, the performer only has the audience to talk to. And the audience is a less certain quantity than a fellow actor. 

At the S&M Bar, MCs James Malthus and Severin Gourley introduce the theme for the evening – sex and relationships – and manage to elicit one brave audience contribution to the question: “How did you lose your virginity?”

“This is a Fringe show. Things don’t need to be funny,” is a gag reiterated by the MCs. And sometimes things aren’t.

If the subject is sex, and you’re a stand-up comic, the easiest route to go is the vulgar one, and that’s what the performers mostly take. It sits well with the audience however. There are the perhaps predictable references to masturbation, Tinder, speed dating and sexually transmitted diseases. Less mentionable items turn up in the final ‘headliner’ act by the only female performer in the line-up.

One performer – of Indian nationality – pops in a couple of racial references which sits refreshingly amidst the sexual ones. ‘One, two Sri’ he opens with, and mentions a “Rum Dog Millionaire”.

Nouns and adjectives earlier contributed by the audience are incorporated into the general repartee, resulting in combinations like “an erotic Auckland”, “a sweaty handgun” and “a sexual signpost”.

The tricks of stand-up are at least twofold: timing, and story coherence. An act isn’t, or shouldn’t be, merely a series of jokes. But to create something of a comic monologue that hangs together is truly an art. The four performers succeed to the extent they manage this.

There’ll be a different topic and a fresh line-up each night.  

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