Ed Byrne: Crowd Pleaser review

It's a bit unfair Ed Byrne going toe-to-toe with the thousand-odd other comedy offerings at this year's Fringe, as he boasts a sizeable, ahem, Ed-start. Not just because he's a well-known TV face and Edinburgh veteran, but because he's been touring this show for a while already. While other acts have been frantically trying to find an extra 15 minutes to fill that difficult post-lull period, he's needed to chop loads out.

Byrne has settled on a suitably taut hour, albeit with a slightly awkward beginning as he wanders the sizeable stage and perhaps ponders the clusters of empty seats. A few anecdotes about his touring exploits fail to hit the spot and you briefly fear that he's gone a bit fluffy since getting married and becoming a father, but once he starts taking pot-shots the momentum builds like a cannonball hurtling down Arthur's Seat. He rides it right through to the final curtain.

Some of the targets are a tad familiar - cats, kids in inappropriate clothes - but Byrne is a master of the slightly lame joke that turns out merely to be the set-up for something expectation-twistingly subversive. It's a good lesson for any comic at the portacabin end of the Fringe programme: that half-decent gag you're quite pleased with? Make it the intro to a better one.

Crowd Pleaser is a likeable, often splendidly witty show, but also lacks any staggering moments of genius, outrage, or the sustained oh-my-aching-sides set-pieces that might have made it truly outstanding. Perhaps they were lost in the edit.

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Ed Byrne: Crowd Pleaser listing