Pssst. Wanna know a secret? Nobody knows this yet, but there's a great stand-up show in one of the Gilded Balloon outposts.

It's a quirk of Edinburgh that skilful Aussie comic Matt King can fashion a fine hour-long monologue, yet fail to attract the audiences his amusing material deserves.

For his topic, King decided on the narrowest of subjects ­ the entire history of the whole world, ever.

Jumping around from era to era, in nothing like chronological order, this personable comedian manages to maintain a great flow of ideas and hilarious comic observations.

The targets seem easy, yet King finds unique new angles to explore, his apparently effortless, chatty style hiding a keen observational mind at work.

There's no trickery here, no theatricals to make more of a show out of it, just a man talking for an hour. It's pure stand-up, done brilliantly.

See him before word gets out.