TV2 Big Comedy Gala at the St James Theatre

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

Some way through this multi-act opener for the Laugh! Festival, Ewen Gilmour told of visiting Amsterdam's redlight district where the locals flaunt their wares in bordello windows.

It was far from the night's best routine - that was a tie between Daniel Kitson and an incident with an audience member's cellphone and Tina C's vision of country music glamour and heartache.

But Gilmour's return from alleged retirement, armed with mildly amusing OE anecdotes, did provide a metaphor.

This gala show is like that seedy area's marketing methods. A quick tease with a view to us paying for the works in some dimly lit room with an experienced professional pretending their routine is just for you and not something they do every performance.

Here at the gala, you get only a wink, a come-hither quip - and lots of them. Counting host Bill Bailey, 15 or so acts took to the stage for a sprawling show which will end up as a tidy commercial hour on the sponsor network tomorrow night (9.30).

Many did leave you wanting more. Some showed enough in their few minutes to know this wasn't meant to be a long-term relationship.

Bailey showed he is a funny man, both winging it with lateral-minded discussions during telly-technical delays and thankfully providing easy review lines to crib with his voice-overs before and after the acts.

"The bastard child of Glen Campbell and 80s Madonna," accurately said Bailey of the appearance of Canadian Glenn Wool whose few minutes theorising on rapper Eminem was astute but a little dog-eared.

"What the ... was all that about?" asked Bailey after local trio Gary's attempt at setting the show alight with real flames and a deadpan demeanour.

Gary wasn't the only local act with a future in ACC ads. Duo Wills and Spencer seem to send up their own mildly masochistic approach, with one cringe-inducing stunt involving marshmallows, blindfolds and a rat trap each.

Among the other highlights of the younger part of local contingent were the guitar-toting duo Flight of the Conchords, who again proved they're far cleverer or funnier than most attempts at mixing pop and parody, and the punk-ish Sully O'Sullivan with his Q&A routine.

The veteran likes of Gilmour, warm-up act Brendhan Lovegrove, Mike King, Radar, Mike Loder and Michele A'Court all thought it best not to be too unpredictable on the first night.

But the most memorable were the English contingent. Andy Parson's dry-humoured musings on the War on Terror and Iraq came with precision-guided punchlines without seeming didactic.

Tina C (who, underneath is an Englishman named Chris Green) might have sung only one song after a spot of oh-so-sincere showbiz patter. But that sure is some persona she has there and her Twin Towers Tribute may well be the outrageous must-see of the festival.

Near the end came Kitson, who will be best remembered for wandering into the front rows to angrily grab a cellphone off a punter making a call and then hurling it away. But there's also something unnerving about the way he juggles with stand-up conventions combined with his hangdog on-stage personality. If comedy is a tough business, then it looks like Kitson has suffered more than most to be that good.