Floridian stand-up Nick Pupo documents his deeply personal journey with addiction in this hour-long one-man show. Using a long-standing and often excruciating relationship with his best friend Charlie as touchstones throughout the story, Pupo paints himself as quite the anti-hero as he repeatedly betrays, lies and exploits the people closest to him in pursuit of his next high.

Although the semblance of a structure is there, and a few of the sticky situations Pupo recounts may deserve to be told in front of an audience, the matter-of-factness with which he tells us his entire life story makes us feel more like an unlicensed therapist than appreciators of art. The script has not a single crafted joke, despite being billed as comedy, and lacks in any creativity or imaginative storytelling techniques.

One use of metaphor dropped by when Pupo describes his first experience with heroin, which he then acts out in real time to music. This change of gear (sorry) was welcome, until Pupo apologises for ‘showing us that’ because he couldn’t ‘put it into words.’ From then he continues to spoon-feed us every emotion, thought and bit of context (the song being played was by Radiohead because that’s what he used to shoot up to) in a piece that would greatly benefit from more showing and far less telling.

Nick Pupo: Addicted, Just The Tonic At The Mash House, until 27 August, 6.10pm.