Romesh Ranganathan: Irrational (SCF)

There's a handy perk of the job for British comic Romesh Ranganathan - he saves a fortune on seeing a shrink. The captain of curmudgeonliness gets a hell of a lot off his chest in the whip-smart 70-minutes he's on stage. From his mother's "coconut" criticisms of his Sri Lankan-lite identity, to setting his wife up with a boyfriend to compensate for his sexual shortcomings, to bemoaning his decision to father three kids, Ranganathan has plenty of fuel for his ire.

But if his lot in life sounds tough, fear not: he's giving as good as he gets.

Taking aim at the small but mighty irritants that plague us poor first-worlders, he blasts the lunacy of communal tables in restaurants, the righteousness of Android phone users, and the maddeningly inane onslaught of reality TV, all while offering handy tips to ISIS.

This double-hinged persona, pivoting from humiliated to humiliator, from emasculated frump to potty-mouthed alpha-geezer, from adorably doting dad to withering cynic, is a duality that Ranganathan judges with forensic precision. Knowing just when to flip the switch, he keeps his audience guessing as to which side of his personality is going to strike next, dropping a surprise self-skewering or a blue-soaked rant just when we're not expecting it. This is a comic who knows his craft; when to pause, when to clown, when to glower. Ranganathan negotiates it all with the deftness of a surgeon.

But it's not his technique that makes his stand-up so powerful. There's a side to Ranganathan that is so unexpectedly endearing it quietly delivers the sucker punch that leaves his audience KO'd. Peeping through the fuming temper are glimpses of light as he talks about his family, in particular, his children and his wife. Even when he admits to hoping his unruly second child would occasionally "hurt himself," it's done with undeniable warmth. Bizarrely, these moments of subtextual affection allow him to push the taste envelope to breaking point. So what if he throws in the occasional nose-wrinkling stinker of a punchline - he's a big ol' softy at heart.

The Sydney Comedy Festival plays at venues across the city till 21 May.