Review by Steve Bennett

I should let Dave Thornton write his own review. After graciously plugging his friends’ Fringe offerings at the end of his hour, he comments: ‘There is a very strong Australian contingent at the festival – I’m probably the weakest.’ Many a true word…

It’s not that he’s terrible, but decidedly ordinary. A decent club comic doing a reasonable, but unfulfilling, hour of easy-to-digest stand-up. That the best moments come when he deals very skillfully with that obligatory Saturday-night audience member, the drunk loudmouth girl who can’t bear not to be centre of attention, only reinforces the fact that a bawdy club is probably his natural environment. Coping with such things is a talent not every comedian has, but it doesn’t necessarily translate to a strong solo show.

Thornton starts with the most obvious material imaginable, all about Australian slang, with the help of the glossary at the back of the Lonely Planet guide. Apparently – get this – they call flip-flops ‘thongs’. Imagine the hilarity that confusion could cause.

Always beware comics who define themselves by their nationality, especially one as commonplace as the Aussies. But other countries isn’t Thornton’s strong point: in a brief routine about British colonialism, he uses Rwanda as an example. As if we didn’t screw up enough countries, he has to blame us for one of Belgium’s.

There’s not very exciting in this upbeat 29-year-old’s repertoire of subjects: the annoying Microsoft paperclip, feeling intimidated at the gym, stupid names of cars – all of which he covers in formulaic fashion. He has a nicely animated delivery and controls the stage, but that often seems like overcompensation for pedestrian material.

Similarly a set piece about the days of the week being allocated their role by God tries too hard. There are a couple of nice lines in it , but he has to work very hard on the contrivance to get to them, while the Easter payoff returns us to the familiar, which again he will annoy pedants (myself included) because the joke only really works if Easter Monday is the day of Jesus’s death.

His best routine concerns silent letters, which does edge away from the obvious starting point, and gives him scope for callbacks further down the line; while there’s a very nice gag about Chinese keyboards, of all things. But that’s not enough to make this feel like a show.

Review date: 10 Aug 2009
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett