Stand up doesn’t get much tougher than a 6 o’clock gig for 20 people in a locker room upstairs at the pub. The irrepressible Jason Pestell takes it on and comes out in front.

Pestell wins his audience with wit and warmth from the beginning, opening enthusiastically, if somewhat predictably, with some Adelaide (his home town) versus Melbourne material. ‘You’ve got the Grand Prix, we’ve got the panda.’ Hey, Jason, here in the big city, we don’t care!

He riffs on – a bit of Twitter patter tuning in to amusing police force tweets – ‘Just booked a 70 year old hoon – he’s older but not wiser’ – Winter Olympics, Jim’s Mowing franchises, Virgin Airlines, juice bar wars and movies. He tells stories from his personal life; his misfortunes with a staple gun, his father’s fascination with his GPS and his own ill-fated attempt to be a monkey-bar leaping legend in Primary School. Pestell doesn’t loiter long anywhere, bounds from topic to topic, spraying one-liners and puns all over the place.

He draws laughs with material drawn from his teaching career, linking most of it tenuously to his ‘jump the shark’ theme. Pestell admits he didn’t understand the phrase when he chose it, just thought it would make a good title. Anyway, the big fish leans nonchalantly in the back corner awaiting the sensational climax. Will he or won’t he? It doesn’t really matter, anyway, as by then the audience is well onside.

This is a good young comedian with some quirky thoughts and an engaging personality; go and see him on the way up.

Finished reading this article? You might also like:

• Jason Byrne
• Sort of the Rings – Jason Chong and Mike Klimczak
• Jason Burne