Aidan Bishop @ Gilded Balloon

Aidan Bishop has just turned 30 and he's not happy about it: he sees a gulf opening up between himself and today’s young things.

Despite the fact he’s actually a young pup to much of the audience, Bishop's harrumphing at modern icons such as Twitter, Facebook and skinny jeans draws appreciative laughter. At one point he uses an ironically lo-tech flipchart pad to bemoan the use of smiley faces, illustrating a rogues’ gallery of sinister emoticons to great effect.

Bishop's other main theme is modern masculinity. He tells us he's a locker-room alpha male, but then flips, crafting intelligent subversions and nuanced observations which are rather at odds with the jock persona.

This ambivalent identity is apparent throughout and it might explain why his delivery is at times awkward and disjointed. In anticipating the next line he has a tendency to swallow his best gags, effectively aborting some of the laughs he’s earned and meaning he fails to build much rapport with the audience. There's certainly good stuff here, though. With a little development, Bishop could polish this into a really fine show.