Kanan Gill @ Pleasance Courtyard

What Is This? is an invitation into Kanan Gill’s worldview, a show fine-tuned to his magnetic presence on stage, the screws of each section tightened until rigid. Gill’s charisma provides ease, creating a wavelength from performer to audience with his relaxed physicality – the raise of an eyebrow, the taking of a beat with a wry smile. You are in his space, and it is both comforting and hilarious.

He assembles the puzzle pieces of his show – sectional questions ranging from the expected (dating apps) to the farcical (Tiramisu competitions? The bureaucracy of landowning admin in his native India?) – so adroitly that it is only after the audience leaves, sides hurting, that there is realisation of quite how brilliant the show’s composition is.

Gill’s nature is casual, his storytelling delivered with the intentional mischief of a schoolboy, but the momentum of the show feels so deft that his engineering background may well have been useful at the time of writing. Recurring beats, such as the stamping of a foot or elaborately writing his signature, crescendo and become funnier with the layering of the various contexts in which they're harnessed.

Gill is wilting and exasperated at the illogical world around him. Nestled amid the fuller narratives of the show are a generous handful of gags aimed at frustrations related to esoterica and Gen Z. Of these nested sucker punches, one delivered in Hindi causes uproarious laughter among the audience, and Gill seems momentarily delighted at the exclusion of non-speakers for this single joke.

What Is This? is an hour of calibrated laughs that proves a comic needn’t rock the boat to produce exceptional, intelligent comedy. Gill’s ability to juggle punchlines and themes without affecting the show’s thrust is a testament to his stage ability, and the consistent buoyant roar of the audience highlights Gill as a convincing, notable and eminently watchable comic presence.

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Kanan Gill: What Is This?, Pleasance Courtyard (Cabaret Bar), until 25 Aug (not 14), 5.40pm, £9-15