Cheeky, charming and full of charisma. Josh races through his material with no filter and no time for filler.
★ ★ ★ ★
In his debut hour at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, in one of the bunkers in the Pleasance Courtyard, Josh Jones proves that he's anything but the Waste of Space he alludes to in his show's title.
He's cheeky, charming and full of charisma. And not only is Josh not a waste of space, and definitely one of the most exciting new names in comedy, but he also wastes no time across the hour, racing through his material with no filter and no time for filler.
Full of confidence, Josh has a presence on stage that's rare to find in a comedian so early on in their career and has the audience hanging on his every word, and crucially, laughing very loudly along with what he has to say.
A confidence that may come from - and I'm quoting him here - the fact that being gay means you can get away with murder.
What else does he have to say? Well, not much. If you're expecting a show with a deep message and trauma, this isn't it. By Josh's own admission, he doesn't do high-brow routines. And that's absolutely fine. There's space for both and he does the other so brilliantly.
That being said, the story about attending his first sex party did sound quite traumatic, as did losing a finger, singing Lady Marmalade at school at a very young age and the fact that he mistakenly told everyone that he's never eaten a carrot. Spoiler. He has.
But we're lucky that this all happens to Josh, because without it, he'd have no material. There's a speed and accuracy to his joke-telling that you can't learn. You either have it, or you don't. And Josh definitely does.
At times, I could tell that Josh felt constrained by the 60 minutes afforded to acts in Edinburgh. This of course is understandable. When putting together your debut, you want to fill it with as many jokes as possible and whilst some comedians find that a real struggle, Josh has the opposite problem in that he has too much material. All of it funny.
Oh and it's not just Josh's skills as a stand-up comedian that he wants you to know about, there's also another skill he's very good at it and you'll have to watch the show yourself to find out what that is. Or if you DM him, he'll probably tell you.