Nick Cody: On Fire

Nick Cody was good at sports at high school, he explains, and that made him overly-confident and cocky as an adult. The Australian stand-up is using the kind of reverse-underdog approach, so while other comedians get the crowd onside by explaining how they were bullied/ignored/hamstrung in some cruel way back in their childhood, he’s using his jock past for the sympathy vote.

He knows he’s a bloke, and a lot of his material is about taking the piss out of all the blokey, vaguely ridiculous stuff that he’s very into – for example, following special forces soldiers on Instagram, appreciating the fine art of cage fighting and fantasising about driving big tanks over cars. But thankfully it’s more than just a pro-bro, men’s rights hour. Luckily he does a good job of offsetting the laddy anecdotes with a more evolved twist.

He’s started using breathing exercises to calm down some violent tendencies, for example, and was prepared to give a vegan barbecue a shot – plus he credits his wife with most of the improvements. He’s got a very laidback style, but gets his biggest laughs out of some of his meaner moments - like how annoying he finds flash mobs, or how proud he was of his mum for taking a serious beating. An interesting take on what it means to be manly, with lots of affable anecdotes about drinking beer, buck parties, and that time he peed all over his flip flops in a lift.