If you break it down, at $5 a pop, this was a pretty good deal. You get seasoned comedians with their own FRINGE WORLD shows giving you a quick 10-minute routine at three different venues in the city. I definitely thought it was worth a punt, and so did the rest of the audience, and there was hardly a seat left at the venue I attended. Perhaps it was the timing, but it certainly hit all the right notes as we finished our Sunday shopping, had lunch and wandered in for a cherry beer and a few laughs at Le Roi in the Belgian Beer Café.

What followed was an excellent line-up of acts, each with their own flavour. With five stand-up comedians, we were spoilt for choice. If you liked any, you could plan to attend their upcoming shows. If you didn’t, well, then it was just 10 minutes.

While we don’t know who we will get at each session, the promise is that we will be getting non-stop laughs from headline-level international comedy circuit professionals who know exactly how to bring the funny to the stage.

In the session I attended, Ollie Horn kicked off the show with high energy and set the right tone. This was followed up by Paul Savage and Michel Shafar, both with different styles of comedy. It was interesting to note how closely they paid attention to which jokes worked or didn’t work, and adapted their routine.

The only female comedian, Sarah Callaghan, got it just right, getting big laughs and audience engagement. She was definitely not oddly shaped, just amazingly funny and well-prepared. George Zacharopoulos kept the momentum going with an inspired closing act.

Of course, after the show, we rated our favourites and made promises to catch their full show. It would have been better if the comedians had some promotional material to hand out as we left the room. Some mentioned they were printing their flyers “soon” but most relied on the audience to remember their names and look for their shows online.