one4review | On 16, Aug 2024

Joshua Bethania is a comedian in search of an audience to fully appreciate his material. There is good, thoughtful, subversive stuff in here, just slightly camouflaged by a dry humour and a restrained delivery. In some places this gives the punch line more punch, and it’s fun to get the joke because you had to work for it a little. In other places the audience didn’t quite realise it was a punch line (or maybe they just didn’t find it funny – it comes back to finding the right audience).

Joshua does expectation management at the top of the show, informing us that his energy level is as high as it will get – which does him a bit of a disservice, because he has sufficient energy for his style of delivery, which works great with his material. The material covers a variety of topics from his childhood to colonialism and politics, through which there’s a good flow and pace, until there’s a large brick placed on the tracks and things get a little too earnest and stall.

The material in this section isn’t objectionable, but it does break the flow and isn’t punctuated by much to laugh at, and, well, this was billed as a comedy show. However, this is the only blip. Mr Bethania is very listenable to, holds the stage and the audience well, and makes original humour out of some familiar topics. There’s good stuff in here, with lots of potential, and I’m interested to see where Mr Bethania goes next.

Reviewed by Laura

Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose
17:20
Until 26th