Western Devil is a show with earnest good intentions, but is served alongside an unfortunate superiority complex. A little like our colonising forefathers, Colin Ebsworth’s ideas have a tendency to come across as aggressive. Less like our colonising forefathers, he has the potential to develop into a popular Australian comedian.

He inspects Western culture through a dirty lens; in demonstrating how outdated the Bible is by comparing Jesus’ sense of sacrifice to Batman’s (both with powerful yet absent parents), Ebsworth can’t quite remove the link between what he knows and how he’s come to know it. What he portrays of Mexicans is from a taco advertisement, which is hilarious, if not a little hollow.

He fares better in local and Australian matters, espousing some genuinely funny observations on mining, becoming a republic, and sharing innovative solutions for Transperth guards. It’s cruel, he supposes, that at a bakery the Turkish bread is the shelf above the Anzac biscuits, because it’s just history repeating itself.

It’s his first solo show, and whilst Ebsworth is charismatic, light-hearted, and funny, he keeps himself at a disappointing distance from the audience. There’s a sense that he’s a lot better at writing the jokes than he is at performing them, which arguably is the more difficult part.

He’s clearly smart, and the world-centric discussion is enhanced by his talent to mimic an impressive array of accents. There’s no shortage of material; indeed, the jokes roll out fast –sometimes too fast – to fit into the forty-five minute show.

But ultimately, Western Devil the show is the sum of its culture: no real problems but for the ones we perpetuate upon ourselves.