Opening stand-up James Malcolm gets us going with some self-depreciating observations about his overwhelming Naenae-given masculinity.  I get the sense that there’s a lot of new stuff being tried out tonight – the delivery seems a bit rushed and nervous in places.  Still, it’s a pleasure to see a young comedian tailoring so much of his material to his audience and playing with his persona. 

Headliner Neil Thornton excels in finding the intersection of the personal and political, and just playing with it.  His show is a mix of his personal background and an attempt to figure out the New Zealand national identity as distinct from the New Zealand marketing. 

The attempts to understand Kiwi-ness work most strongly in contrast with Thornton’s own American-ness.  I particularly love the bit about “why New Zealand” and observations on how different the USA looks from the outside than from the inside, including comparing the different American media groups to members of a dysfunctional family.  It’s comic genius. 

When Thornton tries to solicit insights from the Kiwis in the audience, the results are a bit mixed.  The audience responses are solicited pretty early in the show, and it feels like we’re not quite warmed up to who this guy is yet. 

Turns out, we don’t need to worry; Thornton might be a self-described bear, but he’s more teddy bear than grizzly.  Still, moving this material to later in the set might get some stronger responses.  Though there is a particularly great heckle, which Thornton handles brilliantly, conceding the point without conceding the room. 

The middle of the show is about negotiating his sexual identity in both the USA and New Zealand.  A lot of it has been developed out of Ursus Americanus and it is really exciting to see the jokes grow and develop.  A throwaway about Lord of the Rings has become a masterful comparison between gay subcultures and the different fantasy races.  That bit is worth the price of admission alone, plus you get like another 50 minutes of comedy.

And Thornton is just a master of the craft of comedy – the room is totally unified and he knows how to follow our responses, tailoring material to what we’re laughing at.  An early lead about Canadians get dropped in favour of a comparison of different types of porn, but it is so damn funny that we’re all happy to go there.  It’s a totally confident example of give-and-take that I’ve only ever seen achieved by very few comedians in New Zealand. 

That said, the material about how moving to a new place changes not only how you understand that place, but also yourself and where you come from, will resonate in the best possible way with anyone who has experienced culture shock.

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