The Best Of The Edinburgh Fest is four hot courses of new talent from an event more famous than the city. I went with an unrequited sense of nostalgia, hoping to recreate that feeling of being ‘in the know’.

This perennial show has sunk into my subconscious despite never seeing it before. Perhaps the words ‘Edinburgh Fest’ evoke the innocent excitement of a time when my world ended at Portsea. When famous comedy festivals like Edinburgh or Montreal found me via a St.Kilda café or RRR. But Melbourne’s own Comedy Festival is over 20 years old now and distance belongs to my past.

The host was Mickey D, winner of the Best Comedy show at the 2007 Adelaide Fringe. Decked out like a trans-generational slacker and with a laconic gait that brought out my inner-Aussie, I held high expectations. It put me in the mood for twenty minutes of shared piss-taking. But in the end we got the usual fair about weather and state rivalries with a mysterious bruise on his upper arm providing the only edge. Jokes about perving and racists rarely gain curry in a city whose primeval id has been polished smooth by decades of pseudo-sophistication. If you want to go down that path then you need to bring in a suburban naiveté or risk being a poor man’s Dave O’Neil.

The self-proclaimed ‘Martin Luther King of Porn’ Daliso Chaposa hails from Malawi and takes you someplace you’ve never been before. He brings the professional insight and timing of an experienced comic and embeds it with all his insecurities. His asides about sexual abuse get us onside and allow us to enter his world in a way Mickey D never did. Chaposa has been described as having the ‘super-polished style of Eddie Murphy’, but his gift is rarer and wiser than that. Whilst he discusses that standard fare of comedy – male/female relationships – the fact of having dated a psychologist gives it freshness. His ex may have told him he ‘spoke through his fear’ but given how much we laughed he also speaks through a unique voice.

When a stand-up from Canada starts telling jokes about Frankston (how much comedy mileage can this city provide?) then you know you’re being sold a lie. A packaged routine tailored to the local audience. McDonald’s has perfected niche marketing and Tom Stade may have perfected niche comedy. Yet somehow his dry and laid-back style endeared himself to the audience. Even I joined the ride when he told us China gets him horny because its writing reminds him of a cheap tattoo on a woman’s bum. Stade worked best when he took us on a mini-romp around the world, but crash landed in Las Vegas when he started lamenting his marriage. Maybe he should have brought out his own show and taken us on a longer trip.

Eddie Ifft started with diarrhoea and took it (and us) down the plug hole with him. That mainstay of international comedy – a new person in a strange land – only works if it’s delivered with affection. Ifft’s musings on Australia served to isolated him instead of carry him. We only pay for belligerence and snobbery when it’s an act or a character. With Ifft it’s seemed like neither and instead of providing the edge he hoped for it became a laboured rant. Comparing ‘drink driving’ campaigns here with ‘drunk driving’ ones in the US is just one example of his poor insight. And if you’re going to tell prison rape jokes then you need to build a Melbourne audience’s trust or take your gig to Barwon.

I went to this gig knowing it was hit and miss and thinking if the target was struck once it would be ok. But in the end, that old chest-nut of something being the sum of it’s parts holds true. We judge a restaurant as much on it’s dodgy entrees and as we do on it’s main courses. And did this gig introduce me to the next big thing in comedy? With Mickey D, Stade and Ifft probably not. With Chaposa quite possibility. But that’s coming from someone in the know and on the outer for quite a long time!