The only inform­a­tion I have on Oliv­er Pol is his self-descrip­tion as a “young­ish, tallish stand-up comedi­an.” But it prom­ised to be “a fun, weird hour per­formed with irre­press­ible, limb-flail­ing energy,” and he abso­lutely delivered.

Pol’s style is a bundle of nervous and enthu­si­ast­ic energy. He often moves his body in odd shapes across the stage, throw­ing in the occa­sion­al high kick or skip to keep us engaged. And it isn’t hard because he has packed so much into this one-hour show.

Instead of the usu­al obser­va­tion­al com­edy, he star­ted by turn­ing the micro­scope on him­self: his name, his fash­ion sense, even his undia­gnosed OCD. From there, it’s a whirl­wind of mus­ings, wor­ries, hyper-spe­cif­ic pop cul­ture ref­er­ences, and indir­ect polit­ic­al jabs.

He took us from butt botox, tea vari­ations, and aggress­ive bird reviews to child­hood memor­ies, like cher­ished encyc­lo­pe­di­as and nos­tal­gic children’s songs. Then, just when you thought you’d settled into a groove, he pivoted to New Zealand’s archived mater­i­al from Lyt­telton Har­bour vil­lage before cata­pult­ing us back to present-day Tik­Tok obses­sions. It was like being thrown into a blender of ideas, and some­how, it worked.

There wasn’t a single lull. Pol’s humour is sharp and intel­li­gent without los­ing its sense of fun. His play­ful and at times man­ic approach kept the energy high and the audi­ence on its toes. Wheth­er he was ques­tion­ing wheth­er geese are aggress­ive or just strug­gling to let go of irrel­ev­ant inform­a­tion, or diving into the absurdity of every­day situ­ations, his humour felt both clev­er and play­ful . It was a remind­er that com­edy doesn’t always need a point, some­times it’s about being a silly goose.

Review by Nadia Free­man