Review by Steve Bennett

A huge chunk of his act is based on religion, but there’s actually very little to it. His big idea is that most the characters in the Bible were on drugs – which is an excuse for lots of forced gags about Moses’s ‘tablets’ or all the miracles being hallucinations. It’s a formulaic idea and rather dull – plus he milks it for way too long, with the same theme being repeated time and time again. He keeps mentioning his dad’s job as if this somehow makes the material shocking or rebellious, but it’ll take more than that.

The other key strand to his set is the knob gag, mostly based around the fact after 12 years of marriage his wife keeps turning him down for sex. Again it seems over-familiar territory; after all it’s a theme that’s been around in stand-up since the put-upon comics of the music hall era.

He is very adept at performing it, with a likeable Essex boy presence,

delivery and solid stagecraft, but it’s still hard to engage with the rather ordinary material. The only exception to this is when he talks about his vasectomy; an entertaining routine which must owe its success to the fact it’s based on true experience, rather than contrived jokes.

Dawes has spent the past eight years in the comedy backwater that is the remote Australian city of Perth, but for the competitive UK scene he just doesn’t – as yet – have enough to stand out from all the other acts who depend on blokish chutzpah to get by.

Review date: 1 Feb 2006
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett