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With a few little obser­va­tions to warm up the crowd, Urz­ila, “does­n’t pick on people,” she says, and rein­forces that she can­’t see any­one in the crowd because of the raised seat­ing at Te Aua­ha’s Tapere Nui theatre. She rolls into talk­ing about Wel­ling­ton, stu­dents, and how nobody in their right mind would ever con­tin­ue work­ing if they won Lotto.

“Is any­one on a first date here?” She asks, peer­ing into the crowd, and the audi­ence is com­pletely silent. Someone yells, in a way that’s prob­ably rather too loud, “Second date!” and Urz­ila takes it in her stride and rolls right along to talk about ideal places to take people on a first date if you want to test their mettle.

Carlson has taken one of those Ances­try DNA tests, and the main thread of the show leaves us want­ing, won­der­ing quite how the per­cent­ages bal­ance out, and when revealed, it’s slightly dif­fer­ent to what we’re expect­ing.

The stage is decked out in rain­bow col­ours, and it’s a relief, to me. This show is unashamedly queer, but not quite in the way that a lot of queer com­ics are, and is likely for an audi­ence slightly older than myself, but I had a good time all the same.

On a whole, Token Afric­an is a very fun show with little risk – it was my com­pan­ion’s first ever stand-up show and she had a very good time, and so did I. Carlson is quite a like­able com­ic, and great to watch out­side of the bounds of the short-form pan­el show format.