I’ve been aware of Stuart Laws for quite some years now, and have actually seen him at least a couple of times, once supporting Acaster back in the day (2014, such different times). There’s one joke from the first time, back compering this very festival in 2014, that has stuck with me and makes a surprise appearance here too. Laws is a very good gag writer, and a very good director of other shows, so it’s interesting to see him apply that to himself. It’s a broad narrative show, thematically about having a vasectomy, a dead dad (twice in one day! The trope is not dead!), and what it means to be honest on stage. Within that, though, is one of my favourite sight gags I’ve witnessed this year, a hell of a lot of delightful misdirection, and some surprising heart. Sometimes you can detect a hint of other comedians’ voices in there, and it’s hard not to wonder whether that’s what happens when you’re as prolific a director as Laws is, and then personally how much that might affect me if that’s the route I continue to go down. But that’s by the by. On the whole, a good, tight, if not stellar show.