At a frighteningly young 20, The Third Guy is Tommy Dassalo’s first hour-long show – and it’s probably come far too soon. For while there are a smattering of funny moments here, his ideas and stage persona feel underdeveloped as he sets out an argument that holds few surprises.

Affronted after being edited out of a newspaper article about a giant sandwich that he and some friends created (let no one say Australia isn’t a vibrant news patch) Dassalo decided to investigate some of history’s forgotten heroes - most notably Michael Collins, the man who stayed in the command module as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the surface of the moon.

The show moves on to the modern disease of fame without achievement , vacuous, fleeting and unsatisfactory, and about the need to leave a legacy, either as memories with your loved ones or through lasting accomplishment.

In this, Dassalo talks at the audience, rather than engaging with them. It’s as if he’s putting forward an argument in a formal debate rather than sharing anything of himself, and he indulges in far too much exposition for each gag.

His favourite comedy technique is to establish some fantasy scenario, then imagine how it might play out. But it often doesn’t work because so often the gag is in the set-up, and the unfolding dialogue adds nothing new. When you have a pair of undersea pioneers trapped in their bathosphere, arguing over the game Mousetrap, it sounds funny, but fleshing it out is a much more challenging proposition. Sometimes the ridiculous lengths to which he extends these imaginary conversations is funny in itself, but that’s the exception rather than the rule.

As that bathosphere example proves, Dassalo isn’t going for the easy, well-trodden path, which is to his credit. His examination of the world of fame also considers what might have become of Paul Abdul’s animated Opposites Attract sidekick MC Skat Kat and the folly of Marcus Montana – the scion of a rich Sydney family launched as a rock star with his father’s fortune only to sink without trace after a brief, bizarre, bite of the fame apple.

The elements are in place for a strong show, but Dasallo, unfortunately, doesn’t have the maturity or experience as a stand-up to put them together into something substantial, nor enough of a gagsmith’s eye to hit more punchlines.

He admits he still lives at home with Mum, which makes it hard for us to take any wisdom he wants to share seriously, but neither does he play up, nor particularly mock, his own circumstances. Making more of what he is, rather than trying to be something he’s not is likely to prove a more fruitful route.

The Third Guy is an ambitious attempt, mind, and Dasallo has the nascent signs of a decent comic. But, like Marcus Montana, he’s just not yet ready for the level at which he’s playing.