Tom Ballard – Doing Stuff
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Tom Ballard – Doing Stuff

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He’s got a good on-stage persona, but it’s clear he’s not always at ease with the material he is using. The political jokes really tone down the mood, especially after he’d done a fair bit of work in the opening to set the audience up for a good run. Instead of floating along at one particular medium, the audience is buoyed and then flattened by a series of awkwardly delivered quips about gay marriage rights and other Australian political ephemera, with a long build-up and a less than satisfactory payoff.

It’s probably a predictable outcome, but the sex jokes are where Ballard comes off the strongest. It might be because it’s stuff he’s comfortable with. The audiences gets the kind of torrid drunken sex story that really ends with a kick, and it’s fortunate that Ballard chose to end the show on this note, although it does suggest that even Ballard is aware the earlier material isn’t as strong as what he’s done before.

However, it could also be that Ballard simple hasn’t found his fully comedy feet yet. He’s still quite a young comedian at 22. For the wealth of comedy experience he already has, this show demonstrates that he has promise that is being obstructed by a couple of jarring attempts to jump outside the bounds of his strongest material.

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