Melbourne International Comedy Festival review by Steve Bennett

Still a relative newcomer, Angus Hodge has the assured demeanour of an established comic and the well-practised rhythms and cadences of stand-up.

Yet his jokes don’t stack up to much – and after a full hour in his company, you’ll have very little idea of who he is.

Yes, he says he’s an ‘angry young man’, though there’s little evidence of any such furious passion in his delivery. Show, don’t tell! This might generously be put down to an end-of-festival chest infection, but the tone is more of mild sarcasm. ‘Honesty comes from anger’ he says, but it’s hard to feel it.

When he hits at targets, it’s low-hanging fruit. He doesn’t like racists, don’t you know. Hodge also tells us he’s trying to be a better person, though again evidence is on the scant side – or even that he was so terribly evil in the first place.

Much of his material revolves around his other jobs. There’s the soul-destroying work in hospitality, but his routines are positively limp compared the raw embitterment Laura Davis displays on the same topic elsewhere this festival. Then there’s his time as a children’s entertainer, as the sidekick to Mr Snotbottom, which is mildly amusing – a compound adjective that dogs most his output – but can’t hit the highs.

He has a couple of other enjoyable stories, the strongest involves an encounter with a neo-Nazi at his possible meth lab, which you’d be hard pressed NOT to make interesting. But while he holds the attention, nothing is a stand-out.

Essentially he just needs to get more passionate about something, even if that something is writing killer jokes. Sounding like an assured comic might be enough a short set, but over an hour he’s left wanting.

Review date: 18 Apr 2015
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Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival