The cliché goes that comedy equals tragedy plus time. Which means Eli’s stint on breakfast radio and subsequent appearance on New Zealand’s ‘Dancing With The Stars’ – delivering sufficient financial security to buy a house – is less likely to provide useful material for a comedy routine. So let’s just be grateful Eli’s boyfriend then unwittingly started strangling him while they both slept (a result of the night terror in the title). That said, we’d had a solid half hour of stand-up before we even got to the strangulation, because – turns out – brushes with celebrity and Zoom calls with Ed Sheeran can be pretty damn funny in the right hands. The nighttime strangulation was therefore not necessary after all, but nevertheless provides Eli with extra drama from which to mine more laughs. 

Underbelly George Square, until 24 Aug.
tw rating 4/5 | [Chris Cooke]