Melbourne International Comedy Festival review by Steve Bennett

Amos Gill has all the ingredients to be a strong comic, but somehow he’s cooked them up to being a light, forgettable snack rather than a satisfying cordon blu meal.

At just 22, he has a likeable, sparky energy that comes from a supreme sense of confidence. His stories are well put-together, and he delivers them with good rhythm and timing, heightening the importance of every minor detail.

But there’s frequently not that much there to exaggerate, so the anecdotes feel unsatisfyingly slight, despite all the effort and charm he puts into making them appeal.

He begins with a compere-like preamble, with plenty of familiar throwaway lines and an unimaginative routine pointing out the obvious irony of some slob watching the Olympics at home getting enraged at Australian athletes ‘only’ achieving silver, which isn’t the only clichéd moment of the night.

The meat of the show, however, revolves around embarrassing stories from his past. Or what little of his past there is at such a young age. There’s an ill-judged practical joke on a summer retreat that earned him the hard-to-shake schoolboy nickname of ‘Shitsy’; the time he was bashed by some yob in the street for wearing swanky new shoes; and, perhaps the strongest if least edifying, the sexual encounter on the bins in an Adelaide alleyway.

Sex also provided the most traumatic experience of his life, thanks to his mother’s indiscretion, and the payoff to Gill’s description of his brief encounters with the misogynist culture in footy. This culminates in him reading out a pamphlet given to players that basically tells them not to rape people. It’s shockingly funny that such a guide needs to exist, so Gill gets laughs mere from reading incredulously material that the AFL have kindly written for him.

Many of these routines, over 20 minutes, would make for an assured pub set, but over an hour, the weaknesses are exposed, because ultimately the stories don’t have the impact, he’d want.

Nonetheless, Gill scores well with those closest to his age group in the audience, and his youthful enthusiasm could stand him in excellent stead on a breakfast radio show, where so many of Australia’s more personable comics have gone before. Or he could use the years ahead of him to forge his own path, and build on the considerable performance skills he displays with more interesting and funny material. Or probably a mixture of both. Only time will tell.

Review date: 17 Apr 2014
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett