Review by Steve Bennett

At 19, Australian comic Neel Kolhatkar is already billed as a ‘YouTube superstar’. In practice, here at the Fringe, that means he’s playing to about 20 people, most of an older generation, only one of whom has seen any of his work online.

And judging by his largely uninspired debut, audiences are right not to believe the hype, as he’s certainly got his work cut out transferring the success of his two-minute videos – the most popular of which mock Australian archetypes – into hour-long stand-up sets in the real world. Aimless crowd work certainly highlights the difference in the two genres.

He’s energetic, for sure, and a dab hand at accents… though there’s some discomfort when he drops into an exaggerated comedy Indian one, even though that’s his heritage. Does that make it OK, or are we in Brown-And-White Minstrel Show territory?

But so much of his material is generic: imagining America as the schoolyard bully, as just one of many examples of weary culture stereotypes, or providing a David Attenborough-style voiceover to the feral human behaviour of a drunken night on the piss and on the pull, ending, inevitably, with the kebab. With tired observations like this, his puppyish enthusiasm is not reflected back at him.

If there’s a theme, it’s about the bad influence of hip-hop, WWE wrestling and Grand Theft Auto had on him during his youth – as if he’s a wise old head now! – but it’s little more than an excuse to recreate some footnotes of 1990s culture, rapping or impersonating Chris Tucker in Rush Hour; not perhaps the comedy gold the world is waiting for, however well-executed it is. Mix in some clunky analogies and half-formed ‘imagine if…’ routines and the recipe gets even less appetising.

Kolhatkar seems an affable young man, not letting the muted response to his material drag him down, and maybe his upbeat nature would be enough for a larger, younger crowd who might not yet have seen 100 comics do this exact-same shtick. But wouldn’t you expect the future of comedy, to look different from the past?

Review date: 20 Aug 2014
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Assembly Hall