Amsterdam Underground Comedy Collective

As the group that spawned Hans Teeuwen, the Amsterdam Underground Comedy Collective (AUCC) has a lot to live up to. It’s a shame, then, that tonight they appear to field a merely competent reserve team.

Martijn Koning is the instantly likeable compère, propositioning audience members with a gawky, halfwitted grin. Though not a main attraction, he outshines two of the three acts he presents. The first is Thijs van Domburg’s brand of grumbling misanthropy that begins promisingly, but unfolds with peculiar restraint. Assuming that moaning makes him easy to relate to, he rarely displays the conviction needed to carry him beyond the level of disgruntled teenage goth.

Sander van Opzeeland, meanwhile, knows how to gripe. Sour and cynical, he plays the sharp-tongued underachiever with ease. With his own accent obscured by Americanisms, his sneering impression of the Dutch comic who told him how British audiences "hate it when you shpeak the Queen’sh English’ reassures us that AUCC’s intended appeal is not that of a freak show of inarticulate Europeans stumbling over bad jokes.

Yet the night ends with a whimper when the conspicuously young Stefan Pop arrives. Occasionally blundering, he dithers between ironic bigotry and the halfhearted, anti-racist derision with which he counters it. Pop redeems himself with a stunningly fluent explanation of Einstein’s theory of relativity and an anecdote about visiting a prostitute with his mother, leaving the audience content.

By no means is the showcase a flop – but given such a small window of opportunity, the younger comics fail to make any lasting impression, leaving 40-year-old van Opzeeland’s experience to dominate.