Is This Thing On, review: Bradley Cooper turns John Bishop’s midlife crisis into a comedy with heart

Alex must move into a poky bachelor pad while they work out all the logistical wrinkles. By pure chance, he stumbles into a Manhattan comedy bar, semi-high from a cookie laced with weed, and would rather scribble his name down as a debut performer than cough up the $15 entry charge to sit and watch.

His first set, if you can even call it that, is handled with grace by Cooper, while also being acted to rumpled perfection by Arnett – as, indeed, they all are. A line is trodden carefully: there are never cheap cutaways to cringing audience members, or excruciatingly prolonged pauses where jokes should be.

Instead, the camera holds tight on Alex as we watch him settle on a tone, find a way to be honest about his predicament, and start to achieve the laughs comedians have always reaped from expressing relatable truths in a fresh way. He’s hooked on this self-examination as an exercise, and so are we. No one else knows – least of all Tess, whose eventual exposure to the routine is a not-to-be-spoiled highlight.