STEVE Wrigley puts on a pure show – no props, no costumes, no gimmicks – and his free form signals no two shows will be the same during the six night run.

Wrigley’s a familiar face at this venue and he was comfortable on stage, filling it with a lot of the usual fodder – sex, Christianity, pop culture. Here the 32 year old New Zealand native tossed in a good dose of Kiwi ridicule, riffing on Countdown commercials and drug driving adverts, which were hilarious even if you don’t have a television and have no idea what he’s talking about.

Wrigley excels at audience banter, so much that at times he wanders deeply and has to reel himself back up to the stage. He does it adroitly, at one point arguing viciously with himself while the audience howled.

The full house gave him lots of laughs and plenty of volunteer shout-outs, but there was silence when the tone of his voice asked for it, showing a great control of the audience.

The downfall of skipping a strict script showed at the end: he had a hard time wrapping it all up. It was almost as if he was reluctant to leave the stage and the crowd wasn’t quite ready for him to go.