Review by Steve Bennett at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Making his solo festival debut five years after being a Raw finalist, Cameron James proves himself a natural on stage: charming, confident, with a good sense of comic pace and cadence.

He maintains an appealing air of spontaneity – to the point of accidentally calling a hefty bloke in the front row ‘baby’ tonight – and the tone of his hour is generally light and breezy.

But as another white male millennial comic he’s in a crowded market, and he doesn't always do enough to give himself a unique selling point, especially with routines on drinking Jagerbombs and sending dick pix. 

Considering how this latter act of courtship must have been done with simpler technology is the obvious comic follow-up – and James, like so many others, goes down that now-hack route. Ditto, thinking that a cat-call could ever sweep a woman off her feet is a well-worn comic path, while an extended riff about a paintballing trip feels too longwinded without ever finding a real zinger.

What is James’s own, however, is his background, and when he embarks on tales from his schooldays – with a couple of great anecdotes sparked by him gesticulating too emphatically – the content picks up to match the delivery. The stabbing yarn is a particular gem, the severity of the injury adding to the jeopardy, and hence the laughs.

These stories segue into us revisiting the dreadful ballads he wrote as a teenager, making him one of at least two comedians doing that this festival in an extension of the familiar trope of reading old schoolday diaries. Yes, we’re back on a  familiar territory, even if such naive sincerity is always as amusing as it is cringeworthy. 

James has the sort of easy likability that would probably make him a good breakfast DJ on commercial radio, the way so many comedians before him have earned their daily crust. But with a bit more application and distinctiveness in the material, he could earn his stripes on the comedy festival circuit too.

Review date: 6 Apr 2017
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