Ahir Shah and Alex Maple: One Boy. One Man. Two Comedians

Ahir Shah and Alex Maple’s opening show descends early on into mayhem. It seems that multimedia tools are the bane of good order on stage this year and each of their attempts to change from projector to mike gives cause for much activity and some hilarious rebukes from the wings.

The show includes a fair number of videos and their introductory piece is an inspired BBC News parody that gets to the heart of all that can be slagged off about News 24. Although the acting is all appalling, many of their sketches bring to mind the better bits of Not the Nine O’Clock News.

On the stand-up front, Ahir Shah is extremely promising for a youngster and shows an admirable concern for global politics and its comic potential. He also comes with a very funny if not wildly original take on playing the race card.

Alex Maple spends much of his stint on stage reeling off quick-fire quizzical jokes, some delivered with enough tongue in cheek to get a good laugh and others so obscene you can’t fail to giggle.

When not excelling on their own, the little interaction there is between Shah and Maple is charmingly abusive, especially during the many fuck-ups, and they complement each other well. Both comics are at their best when things are going a bit wrong and they often get the best response while hanging on to a joke by the tinniest thread before somehow pulling it back superbly. Hopefully, practise won’t make this show too perfect.