“Do you want any choof?” asks a pale man in waterproof jacket and striped shirt as he walks down Swanston Street. A lot can amuse when walking Melbourne’s streets and keeping your eyes and ears open to what’s around you. Al Pitcher has taken this idea and run with it, camera in hand. His show is the self-confessed equivalent to your mate showing you holiday pics, except his holiday is in the streets of Melbourne and occurred on the day of the gig. It is the ‘mate’ aspect of this idea that should be emphasised most, because Al is at his best working the crowd and getting people to chime in with a little bit about their own lives. In the small, warm room in Roxanne Parlour he even handed out Icy Poles to the audience, and then had fun joking with the bloke who was unhappy he’d got the green one.

The limitations Al has put on the show are ambitious and he proudly points out this method means he can’t say ‘a funny thing happened on the way to the gig’ without having the evidence. However, they are limitations. Al had only been in Melbourne for four days when we saw him. His local knowledge was still building and errors like referring to Brunswick Street as ‘Brunswick’ or not knowing that almost every local paper is called The Leader weakened the potential comedy and banter. Some in the crowd were visitors, though, and perhaps if Al took a few touristy scene-setting photos he could create a fun travelogue of a section of town. This is not the focus, though, and it felt to me that the slideshow actually distracted Al from exploring funnier tangents even when he was getting strong laughs. But these are laughs which prove that on another photo-documented day, this show could be a hit.