I’ve seen Josh Thomson in many TV comedy shows such as 7 Days, Taskmaster NZ and Have You Been Paying Attention? but never in a straight up stand-up form, so tonight is new territory.

Thomson’s show Old Mate is described as “him sharing the thoughts that should stay in his head, as he hilariously navigates the next phase of life – Old Matehood”. And as someone verging on this ‘old matehood’ myself, I am hoping for some relatable laughs.

Thomson comes out hyped up, giving hellos and handshakes to those in the front rows, and proclaiming that the Wellington crowd smells good, before launching into his first joke.

Reliving a recent bout of gastro in his household, the audience are treated to a disgusting but at times funny few minutes of bodily fluid humour. When someone groans, Thomson laughs and states, “if you think that’s gross, then you’re not going to enjoy the rest of the show.” This gastro story goes on for a while but has a few jokes intertwined within it – and some audience input makes sure we are on the same page.

I’m assuming that part of ‘old matehood’ is becoming a parent and oversharing about your kids’ lives (I am indeed guilty of this) as Thomson has a lot to say about his 4-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter. These jokes and stories are endearing and funny and you can tell who are parents in the audience by the nods of agreement, cheers and laughs they provoke. Thankfully that appears to be a majority of us.

One particular piece of material about his kids, whilst being mostly funny, takes a very long time to get to the punchline and as a result, what I think could have been a hilarious ending seems less impactful. It gets a lot of laughs though, so that may just be the opinion of me and my partner and not the majority.

Possibly the most funny and unintentional part of the show happens when Thomson asks if there are any fellow Tongans in the house, to no response. What about Samoans? also no response. Finally, he asks are there any Polynesians in general? And when he is only met by laughs, he quips that he can now be racist, which he clearly doesn’t do but it gets a good chuckle.

In fact, there are points in the show where he could make jokes that are racist and stereotypical but he chooses not to. There are also points where Thomson says things that could be considered ‘woke’ and it is hard to determine whether this is to appease his audience, especially when he says things like, “Am I right Wellington?”

Moving on from kids, Thomson now uses this time to share some irks he has with his lovely and wonderful wife Liz. These are delivered as what I would describe as a roasting but said with love.

Much like before, I think this part goes on for too long and that if a couple of jokes were cut out it would be more comical, but the crowd are enjoying themselves and Thomson chats to an audience member about why they agree with him, showing there are still interested patrons.

Thompson goes off on tangents sometimes and then forgets what he was actually talking about, at times needing a reminder from someone in the audience, but he laughs at himself and carries on and there is a fun chaos to these moments that everyone seems to enjoy.

At times Thomson can be quite rambly, long winded and gross (he did warn us) so my constructive advice would be to try and polish the show with fewer off topic rants, and to make some jokes more succinct.

Overall, I enjoyed this show less than I wanted to, perhaps because I have a lower attention span than others, so for me the long-winded stories and jokes just haven’t hit home. However, the people around us were having fun and laughing for the whole show, so maybe Thomson just isn’t my cup of tea.

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