Akmal Saleh

Akmal Saleh is “not a celebrity”, he’s an artist – or at least that’s what he told the producers of a certain Channel 10 show he was assigned to earlier this year.

Saleh’s stint on the program was the perfect base for a set that largely broke down and analysed the saddest culture of 2016, picking apart the idiosyncrasies of mainstream media.

But, despite engaging material, it felt as though his material was stretched too thin at times in an effort to fill his quota of an hour, which resulted in inconsistent flow and joke setups trailing off on tangents that weakened the punchline or didn’t get there at all.

That’s not to discredit the show’s high points by any means, as a seemingly improvised and timely 60 Minutes joke and cleverly crude jabs at organised religion and his upbringing, among decent crowd interaction in the final quarter of the set made for an entertaining evening.