Rhys James: Begins

Just another haircut comedian? Certainly 23-year-old Rhys James has the haircut, the t-shirt, the chiselled features and the reflexive tics that suggest he belongs to the tribe.

His dexterous wordplay and poetry, however, set him apart from some of his contemporaries, that and the fact that he doesn't rush his delivery with a restless eye that's constantly looking for the next gag.

Not that his show is perfect, despite being bookended by two absorbing rhymes. A hotch potch of post-adolescent fair, with no discernible thread, lies in between, including ruminations on the unlikely premise of snakes and ladders and the fascination with Trivial Pursuit and whether those wedges are cheese, cake, pie etc. 

Throw in a rebuttal of a bad review and a bit of unrequited love and you have a more sophisticated version of a teenage strop. But boy, it is sophisticated in parts, as James delivers some of his straight prose set in an intonation as engaging as his poetry.

Sometimes his topper jokes take him to a giddy excess, but James keeps a check on himself. Slick without being impersonal, and tight without being impenetrable, James's concept of how to sell himself is underlined by a short film at the top of the show.

In the trailer James's image is manipulated by a PR played by Matthew Crosby, from Pappy's, with James shirking the moulding of him. While everyone believes themselves impervious to such outside pressure, with James you can really see a single-mindedness at work.