Rating: ★★★  

Met by comedian Takashi Wakasugi himself at the door with a warm smile before his show, Welcome to Japan, was a welcoming (ha) start to our evening at the Richmond Hotel. 

Wakasugi is sweet and genial throughout his set, often interacting with the audience as he offers funny anecdotes from his parallel lives in Japan and Australia. He carefully treads the line when poking fun at the two countries and their wildly different norms, with fairly G-rated takes, before jumping to MA15+ self-deprecating remarks, and broke up the evening with illustrations and haikus, which the majority of the audience adored. 

Undeniably a fun night, Wakasugi’s show could benefit from further refinement. Using repartee with certain members of the audience to segue between jokes quickly became tedious and the show became fairly repetitive towards the middle of the hour. That being said, other segments, such as the aforementioned poetic interlude, were extremely well-received and obviously well-tuned and practised, offering the show a few stand-out moments.

I think with a little more fine-tuning, Wakasugi will take on next year’s Fringe with aplomb.