If you’re after a cheap beer, nice atmosphere, romantic lighting, or simply a chilled-out night on the town for not-too-many dollars, I heartily recommend Flinders Lane’s Purple Emerald (or the alternate venue – the Bond) for the next couple of weeks, as the Comedy Festival continues its engulfment of the city of Melbourne. But comedy? I’m sorry, but head elsewhere, please.

It’s not that Kelly Wilkinson’s show is poorly constructed, that Wilkinson herself is a dolt, or offensive, or unfunny – it’s not, and she’s none of those. I do think that over a few casual beers, Wilkinson would provide a few laughs. But simply put, for most of the people who’ll be heading out to a show or two or twelve in the next fortnight (perhaps showing my bias, I’m picking the audience as mostly university educated and not exactly conservative), there’s just not much here that will appeal, and especially not an entire hour of it.

I’m sure there is an audience for this type of humour – the ocker, the Aussie, the unadorned and anti-ironic. As Wilkinson pointed out ad nauseum, she’s from a small country town in New South Wales somewhere, and apparently that’s bloody funny. (It’s not.) But okay, if I had myself been, or presently lived, in a small country town, perhaps I would’ve laughed more, or at least connected a little more with the jokes being told. But I’m not, and I struggled to find the humour.

There were some laughs, of course, and lest I seem like the reviewer from hell, this I will concede. An amusing chew toy brought a grin to my face, But when the centrepieces of the show were rugby jokes (”Anyone here a rugby fan?” was met with silence and shuffling feet) and a thoroughly confusing gag about a dog called nigger (I’m hardly a part of the PC brigade – I just didn’t get it), you have to wonder if this show would have been better off staying somewhere in country New South Wales.