Some comics shuffle on, others arrive with a sort of sideways snigger.
Canadian comedian Elvira Kurt doesn't so much take to the stage as bounce on to it.
You've got to take notice. Could it be those nylon pants in a shade of orange more commonly associatedwith the gear emergency workers wear at accident scenes?
Probably. It's a control thing. She knows the audience likes to show who's got the power.
No contest.
It's not so much a show as a perfectly realised 20th-century commentary on the seven ages of woman - in reverse. Old age is a "rip-off." Why, laments Kurt, is there no trade-off? Sagging body parts for, say, x-ray vision.
Try being pre-pubescent in the 90s. The trauma. When the red-headed one left the Spice Girls they had to set up a phone counselling service for suicidal teens of every hair colour. The calls were answered by 12-year-olds.
Celine Dion could join, is the advice offered by this patriotic Canadian. She could be Big Head Spice. What cynicism.
We could be so happy if only we could regain what we had when we were three.
When was the last time you saw somebody skipping home, swinging the briefcase? What power. Don't want to go to work? Just say no: have a tantrum and don't let go of the door knob. Have to go? Just stamp and shout: "You're not the boss of me."
And so on through the family photo album until she bursts out through the back cover - a fully formed lesbian comedian whose mother is reduced, in turn, to the size of a 3-year-old. She should never have put Kurt in that pink polyester pant suit.
These are some of the jokes. The real joy of Kurt is her ability to grow words into pictures at once utterly familiar and utterly fresh.
Go and rubber-neck. It'll be a long stretch on the comedy highway before you get another chance to witness a such a happy collision of smart and funny.
