Consciously or otherwise, New Zealand comic Rhys Darby's set keeps recalling Flight of the Conchords, the HBO sitcom that made his name. In this show's tenuous framing device, we find Darby marooned on a spaceship whose computer, Al, talks like Conchords star Jemaine Clement. The gig even opens with a David Bowie number – a singer to whom Conchords fans can never listen again without smirking. But here, unlike in his last major fringe outing, Darby isn't overshadowed by his Conchords fame, and finds a workable balance between autobiographical standup and the rubber-limbed cartoon comedy with which he started out.
It's the latter that secures the big laughs tonight, as Darby mimics a horse trying to walk backwards, or twists himself into wonky shapes to trigger a motion-sensor tap in a public loo. For the opening 20 minutes we're in Lee Evans territory, as standard-issue observational material is made loopily amusing by Darby's vocal effects and elastic physicality – not to mention delicious echoes of his Conchords alter ego, the fastidious consulate pen-pusher Murray. (On offering a handshake and being met with a closed fist: "Please receive it! Please receive it!")
The rest of the set is more autobiographical, and lowers the comic pitch. That's partly because Darby's personal stuff doesn't ring true; his stories of childhood misadventure and teen romance are generically dorky rather than specific. The best anecdote – because it marries form and content, and couldn't be about anyone else – recounts a careers advice session when, advised that New Zealand offers only three jobs (rugby, farmer, Lord of the Rings), Darby pesters his teacher to let him work in sound effects. Be true to yourself, is the lesson drawn from these fragments of autobiography – and sure enough, a sharper sense of who Darby really is might yet turn his good act into a great one.
