While the streets have been quiet around the city, the same couldn’t be said of the Goodwill Club in the basement of the Rechabite.

In a cosy setup where the front rows sit in that ‘pick me’ light, the hecklers hang out back close to the bar, and the less brave of us get to enjoy the anonymity of the middle ground; the crowd were happy to feed their easy going energy to the comics with little encouragement by MC Rory Lowe. Coming on strong, the hot topic comedian quickly plucked a few personal facts and inferences from the front row before spinning into a raunchy tale of the haggling one’s worth that had the room ready for more.

Half the fun of comedy is not knowing what to expect or who, and having been on a comedy pub crawl at the start of Fringe I was glad there were few repeats from the familiar faces. Even when Scottish comedian Dave Callan took to the stage to find a whole row of fans who had just seen him, he still managed to take it in his stride with different jokes that didn’t leave anyone wanting.

Englishman David Hughes assured us he was not that other same named comedian, and while the deadpan delivery took some warming up to, jokes about abandoning your kids were well received.

Despite the headline, the majority of the themes stayed within the continents borders, with a lot of head nods to Queensland and attempts at comedy on state premiers and politics failing to take. Zimbabwean Thabo Tshuma lamented the fashion sense imposed on him by the missus without sympathy while Miss Samia used a koala to get out of a tight spot.

Scotsman Grant Mushet closed out with a journey through his tattoos under the influence before the MC returned to send us onto the next show (namely his follow up at 9pm). It was what you expected of a comedy night without expecting anything. There were some misses that made it feel like running down a list of talking points but it never took a comic long to find the right path to a laugh and the build up was always worth it.