Wil Anderson is big in Australia. But, as this show confirms, so are race riots, shark attacks and shallow graves; maybe we shouldn't get carried away by the reputation. Save for one Perrier-nominated Edinburgh appearance back in 1999, Anderson has rarely visited the UK; this two-week run is his first stint in the capital, and an early Christmas present for his shivering community of compatriots.
Anderson has enough Aussie material to warm their cockles – and almost enough laughs to tempt the rest of us. There is nothing exceptional about this 34-year-old comic; he gives us genial meat-and-potatoes standup of the type that demonstrates why he is a panellist on the Australian version of Have I Got News for You and co-host of "comedy talkshow" The Glass House. The chirpy facility of Anderson's style can't disguise the pedestrian nature of much of his material, even though the smartest gags are delivered in the final 15 minutes.
What you don't get is any sense of individuality or intimacy. This is a slick standup doing his job, which seems to entail disingenuous remarks such as "even I can't believe I said that!" which are designed to suggest Anderson is more outrageous than he is. In fact, he is not remotely outrageous, and the early stages of his set might have been generated using auto-standup software. He is getting old and doesn't understand young people's music. Blowjob – that's a bit of a misleading term, isn't it? Terrorists think they'll be rewarded in paradise with 72 virgins. Ha clunk click ha.
The same could be said of the second half, too, which is dedicated to discrediting creationism. Two weeks after Eddie Izzard's sublime show on the same theme, Anderson inevitably suffers by comparison. For example, Anderson points out that the human appendix is redundant and therefore not intelligently designed – then waits for the laugh. Izzard, by contrast, used that observation to trigger a bizarre roleplay in which a grumbling appendix grew ever more frustrated at the interminable wait for some grass to digest.
But at least in these later stages, Anderson takes a stand (however conventionally) against religious zealotry and Australian racism. Indeed, his squawking caricature of the boorish Aussie male is the funniest joke in the show. And the material improves, too. Anderson mocks the charge "material assistance to terrorists", which makes Aussie Guantanamo inmate David Hicks sound like a suicide bombers' tailor. ("Queer Eye," says Anderson, "for the Al-Qaida Guy"). His inventory of the human body, intended to debunk intelligent design, builds a satisfying comic momentum. "Poo and wee should not come out of the fun area. If you were designing a nightclub, you wouldn't put the toilets in the middle of the dance floor."
As the words "poo" and "wee" suggest, this is not sophisticated comedy. But Anderson's middle-of-the-road persona can't obscure a few smart moments, when his show itself bears hallmarks of intelligent design. His London visit may be less exciting than a shark attack, but at least I never (well, seldom) felt compelled to fend him off with a well-aimed poke in the eye.
