Joel Dommett: Finding Emo

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“Now I’ll have to show you my desktop,” groans Joel Dommett, as his elaborate new show judders off to a rickety beginning. Having moonlighted as a minor celeb on MTV and BBC3 (one fangirl secures a selfie with him before the set even starts), Dommett the comic is on the free fringe this year, and revelling in the challenges it brings.

Not having a tech, for example, he’s learned to operate the Ballroom’s lights himself, which offers a revealingly grand opening. Yes, a laptop presentation then stalls, but his extravagant exasperation adds to the enjoyably ramshackle air – and lulls a still unsure audience into low expectations. Who could foresee the fireworks to come?

Finding Emo’s storyline sounds fairly unpromising: Dommett’s turning 30 soon, so decides to reform his old band. The first inkling of its wayward genius is an impressively awkward recreation of his teenage stage persona, eventually followed by an excruciating centrepiece as the comic takes us, at length, through his subsequent solo rap track, the sort of misguided artefact most of us would have securely destroyed.

Our host’s eagerness to revel in his own embarrassment is the driving force here, from teen mistakes to live moshing with audience members. The early lines could be sharper (dammit, Dommett, stop saying the word "excited") but while the show often looks likely to fall apart, there’s actually a sharp comedy brain holding it all together. That’s particularly evident from a wickedly memorable moment late on, one of several surprise twists, and a thing of simple-but-spectacular brilliance. It alone is worth your nought pounds.