Josh Thomas is adorable, his dog John is adorable, his boyfriend Tom is adorable, but particularly Josh himself is just adorable. Josh is cute and sweet and endearing. Unfortunately his latest show, Surprise doesn’t really showcase Josh’s copious array of other talents. Like his talent to be incisively witty and clever, or his talent take the audience to a place which they didn’t expect. Ironically, Josh seems to have lost the ability to surprise us.
The prelude to his entry onto stage is grand, and Josh admits himself that the build up of excitement is disproportionate to what is to follow. Josh has a kind of privileged, middle class guilt going on without the self aware irony, which can occasionally be annoying.
Josh’s story is about coming out, about meeting and falling in love with his boyfriend, about loving his dog and about not loving religion. Oh by the way, spoiler alert, Josh is gay. That’s the surprise. Not really a spoiler though. It’s one of the first things he says after coming to the stage. That’s common knowledge by now anyway. Josh’s boyfriend is fellow comedian Tom Ballard. You can’t not be sure of this after seeing the show. In fact he mentions Tom so often that it feels a bit like name dropping, and not name dropping in that self conscious, humourous way. Josh’s story is sweet enough, but, at times, lacks some of the weight which Josh seems to attach to it, whilst he sort of skips over aspects of the story which feel like they need more fleshing out.
My disappointment with this show can’t be entirely blamed on Josh. Unfortunately the audience at the Comedy Theatre on this Friday seemed to be on some kind of ‘laughter hair trigger’. Josh’s every other move or word was indiscriminately met with raucous laughter. This made it almost impossible to follow the delicate nuances of he narrative. This lack of discretion infiltrated the show to the point that the crescendo of Josh’s story, a call back, was met with a muted response. Josh was, in turn, forced to remind the audience “you know, earlier when I told you that story…”
Josh has made a cross for his own back in a way. By tying his comedy persona to affectation, he has drawn an audience who prefer a catchphrase to an intricately woven narrative. What’s more, Josh was openly catering to the audience response, repeating, ad nauseam, phrases (‘awkward’) and actions that received an audible response.
‘What’s wrong with that Annette, you massive snob’ I hear you ask, ‘he’s just giving the audience what they want!’. The problem is that I remember when Josh set himself a higher standard for his comedy and he was prepared to work for his laughs. Now he’s breaking into a spontaneous dance just to get a cheer from the audience. Whilst some might find this endearing or cute, it’s gonna get real old real quick.
I’ve been following Josh’s career since he won RAW in 2005, and I’ve been cheering on our baby faced, funnier than his years, Josh Thomas, since the start. Only five years later, much to my chagrin, I find that he’s gone soft.
For full booking details go to the Melbourne Comedy Festival website