Rhys Nicholson: Bona Fide

Everything about Australian comic Rhys Nicholson is sharp: his cheekbones, his suit and tie, his barbed wit and his acerbic delivery. He attacks ideas at pace, from teenage sexual encounters to gay marriage, flinging material at the audience with vigour.

It's impressive and stylistically assured, though early on the material is less inspired. Wanking, drinking and pubescent fumbling—with people of any gender—hardly provide enlightening discussion. "Welcome to the filth train," he declares, but little of this is shocking in 2016.

When he sets his sights on Australian gay rights, he finds much more valuable targets. He has gay friends in Australia who've recently got engaged, which he points out is "like buying a lamp before electricity's been invented" – or "after it's been invented but everyone says you can't be trusted with it". Throughout, whenever he mentions heterosexual friends who are now married he almost involuntarily tics, "good on them, would be nice to have the option".

He's worried, too, that the LGBTI+ community ("they keep giving us more of the alphabet") isn't helping itself. He recently voiced an animated department store advert only to find himself in a media furore, with his camp reindeer character deemed an insult to the struggle.

The ending, which circles back to his relationship with his long-term partner, adds personal insight and real emotional resonance to all this. It's a fierce finish from a talented storyteller/comedian – it's just a shame about some of the gratuitous self-indulgence that has come before.