Brighton Fringe review by Steve Bennett

Ade Foiadelli moulds himself as a ranting, polemic comic in the mould of George Carlin, and although his hour-long show contains some solid routines, there's no real philosophy underpinning it. Meanwhile old gags, padding and myriad distractions suggest he hasn't got enough good material to see him through.

He has a confidence addressing the audience inherited from his day job as a sales trainer. The profession is obviously of zero interest, so an odd choice to make in the title of a show which, sensibly, mostly ignores his job. The notable exception is a corporate-style parable that runs through the hour, containing an alleged life lesson for us all - even though the morale is ultimately asinine, and you may well have heard the tale before.

He gets to the first instalment of this story after a lot of introductory faff that does nothing to establish his credentials as a trusted funnyman. Nor do his constant referals to his set list to remember what happens next, and that's a rather crucial chink in his armour when he's playing a room that's not entirely conducive to comedy, with noise bleeding in from the loud bar above and occupied by a large group of blokes who need to show their alpha-status by talking loudly to each other.

Once he gets going, Foiadelli lobs out some good ideas with the sort of common-sense, but usually overlooked, logic that defines good, opinionated stand-up. Yet this is greatly diluted with a lot of more predictable stuff: atheism with little twist beyond the intellectually superior posturing; stories about being high; and answering back to the 'You wouldn't steal a handbag' anti-piracy DVD warnings that's a watered-down version of a routine Ed Byrne was doing years ago, back when they were new.

And this gets to the nub of Foiadelli's problems. His style and approach seems to be of free-thinking maverick... but the material only occasionally lives up to that. Would a free thinker include the old chestnut 'why is there only one word for thesaurus?' in his repertoire? More seriously, why would he assert: 'All girlfriends are psychos' with little to back it up?

Although new, Foiadelli, is doing some things right – but authenticity is not yet one of them.

Review date: 11 May 2014
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett