Elliot Steel is the son of veteran comedian Mark Steel, a fact which he discusses at length throughout his new show, Love And Hate Speech. Even if his pater familias was never mentioned, you could most likely hazard a guess at his father. He has a similar vocal cadence to Steel senior, off-handedly mentions attending Socialist Workers Party meetings and, like his dad, has a relaxed but surgically precise delivery.

But Elliot Steel’s perspective on life is far from a tribute act. The thrust of the show’s beginning deals instead with topics specific to his place as a young male in the Gen-Z bracket, with impeccably paced material on how male mental health is portrayed in the media, eating disorders, and generational gaps on liberal issues. These are dark subjects not being mined to make an overarching thematic point (although a consistent thread running through the show is that many of the coping mechanisms men adopt are far from healthy), but to strike grand nuggets of brutal and gloomy humour. 

In a few long monologues (one of which will have anyone with a weak stomach groaning in their chair), Steel proves he’s a dab hand with impressive callbacks and the storytelling skills of a mate reeling off an anecdote in the pub. And yet these protracted sequences can also sag, turning Steel’s twentysomething predilection towards drug-taking from bawdy and laddish to tiresome. He can go toe-to-toe with his dad for gags, but still has some growing to do. 

Elliot Steel: Love And Hate Speech, Underbelly Cowgate, until 27 August, 9.55pm.