Comedy review: A hit and miss hour with James Malcolm

James Malcolm, one of the comedians performing during the Comedy Festival.

At 22, James Malcolm, a two-time Billy T award nominee, is relatively new to the game.

Malcolm plays up his natural baby face from the get go, appearing on stage in a tie dye T-shirt and a pair of Disney dungashorts.

With apologies to Lucy Roche and Ray O'Leary for stealing the title of their own very funny comedy duet this year, it's a "young, dumb, and full of comedy" bit that only works some of the time.

It's frustrating to see Malcolm at times confine himself to the broadest version of the "camp gay man" stereotype, when there's evidence within his show proving he's got the ability to make smarter jokes than that allows.

Maybe this is a sign I'm getting old and incredibly boring, but stories about blow jobs are not funny in and of themselves. You still have to earn the laugh.

A group of friends behind me clearly disagreed. After one bit where Malcolm mused on whether he had "ADHD for dicks", I heard a woman behind me shriek with laughter, then hoarsely choke out "same".

But during another joke about sex, when the audience was rhetorically questioned whether they'd ever had to make the choice between doing something really gross to have sex with someone really hot, a disapproving older man's voice rang out crystal clear: "No, we haven't".

Again, Malcolm is still new, and Fameless has flashes of brilliance which show great promise.

Wry asides on politics, classism, some of the better jokes about sex and a few self-deprecating nods to his own crass humour perhaps being a cheap way to earn laughs show Malcolm is smarter than he lets on.

His confidence built throughout the show and as he lost his nerves, he also lost a few distracting verbal tics, meaning the performance became more engaging as it went on.