Review by Steve Bennett

Why do bad titles happen to good comics? Australian stand-up Nick Cody's Edinburgh debut is an hour of solid, no-nonsense comedy from a solid no-nonsense guy, full of hilarious anecdotes. Not that billing the hour 'Beard Game Strong' would likely encourage you to want to discover that fact.

He has a beard, true, and is also a true blue collar bloke, loving heavy rap music, 'beer in plastic glasses and contact sports', UFC especially. So he doesn't understand the fey world of hipsters, gluten intolerants and yoga fanatics. What he doesn't understand, he mocks, and mocks hard.

But if you think this makes him an alpha male, think again, as he's plenty of anecdotes that reveal him to be a softened urban chump, left beached in any situation he can't google his way out of. As such he represents a generation of twentysomething men, coasting along, more than a slacker, much less than an achiever.

As he confesses in engaging storytelling routines, his circumstances leave him unprepared for the wilds of Alaska – or even the toilet hoses of South-East Asia. His misadventures with these prove as much of a blast as the water jets that emerge from them, producing an absolute corker of a routine. It's possibly no coincidence that he's a bit of a 'loose unit', as he dubs idiots, given that he comes from a family of them.

Cody seems older than his 28 years, yet probably has a lifetime of bad choices ahead of him to mine for stand-up. And he delivers the goods, with robust routines. This is not one of those grand, overarching theme shows, but a hour of sturdy comedy, almost any chunk of which could be lifted out and deposit into a club, and smash it.

A few routines could do with nips and tucks, including a section about entertaining the troops in Afghanistan that sounds a bit too much like every other comic's bit about entertaining the troops in Afghanistan before finding its own feet. And the audience participation section this leads into definitely take too long to set up, even though everyone enjoys the release of playing along with verve.

Yet these are small notes on what's already an impressive Edinburgh debut, from a comic with the rhythms and timing that can only really be forged in the heat of the club circuit.

Beard Game Strong? Never mind about that. Comedy Game Strong? Most definitely...

Review date: 17 Aug 2015
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Assembly George Square