Review of visiting American comic's PowerPoint-led show

PowerPoint has long been part of the comedian’s toolkit, but Josh Sharp takes it to extremes, with 2,000 slides in his 75-minute show. He’s done the maths, and it works out at one every two-and-a-quarter seconds, on average.

Essentially, that means we’re getting subtitles, with almost every word he says – and especially the emphatic ones – projected in neatly formatted, starkly monochrome, elegantly serifed letters on the screen behind him. Is it a gimmick? Well, yes, obviously, though he gives a couple of artistic reasons behind it.

One is that two-screen viewing is normal in an era when everyone scrolls their phone while watching TV. Does this mean a lack of focus, he asks, or a marvel of the brain to hold two ideas at once? He’s pitching for the latter. 

His other suggestion is that the PowerPoint exposes the ‘bullshit’ of stand-up. This might seem like a casual conversation, but every word must be carefully scripted, else the slides wouldn’t sync.

That’s true, but don’t we want that artifice? 

Showing every turn of the script is something of a barrier. Sharp is super-personable and we’d easily be beguiled by his charming story were he not constantly reminding us not to suspend the disbelief this was anything but a relaxed one-sided conversation. 

But it seems – and he as much as voices this feeling – he fears that without his MacGuffin he’d be just another stand-up talking about his sexuality and his relationship with his parents. The presentation via PowerPoint – or, to be precise, Google Slides – defines him as something different from that.

The American – born in the Deep South and now resident in New York – certainly extracts some good jokes from the projections, and the gimmick never comes close to being as tiresome as it initially threatens to be. He’s clearly an intelligent, eloquent comic and cleverly uses his exposure of the show’s meticulous structure as a device in itself, but it’s ultimately an approach more to be admired than loved.

Sharp’s story takes us from being closeted in the ultra-conservative rural town where he grew up – and where he was briefly a child magician – through to his sexual escapades once he broke his covenant with God not to act on his urges, anecdotes which are hugely entertaining in his retelling. We hear, too,  of his encounters with a bizarre Karen type on a subway,  a rant about umbrellas, and an inadvertent consumption of paedophile porn.

More tenderly, his relationships with his Adele-loving dad and radiant mother are explored while  he uses his own terrifying near-death experience to discuss the very dubious-sounding ‘quantum immortality theory’ alongside his plentiful dick jokes.

The story is elevated by its heart more than its gimmick, and given life by Sharp’s vivaciously arch delivery, full of queer and Gen Z affectations writ large as he revels in being in the spotlight. He has a gushing style, embracing theatricality (ta-da!) and ever-alert to being constantly in a performance,  a self-awareness shared by post-millennials and which his use of slides speaks loudly to. All this pizzazz while being real and vulnerable. Maybe we can hold two ideas simultaneously after all.

• Josh Sharp: Ta-da! plays at Soho Theatre until Saturday.

Review date: 17 Feb 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Soho Theatre