Matt Kirshen - Have You Seen This Boy?, Pleasance Courtyard
It's no mean feat performing in The Attic, the hottest of the Pleasance Courtyard's venues temperature-wise, especially on the first night of your first-ever Edinburgh show. The 26-year-old Matt Kirshen handles the experience extremely well, however, and doesn't have to break into too much of a sweat to keep his audience entertained.
Looking younger than his years ("It's OK, I'm not a child," he assures us), Kirshen is well aware of his cute and geeky air but is quite capable of more risqué material. He ponders the conundrum of a child flashing at an adult in a public place and concludes that it would be the adult who was arrested. Elsewhere he gets in an effective dig at the food guru Gillian McKeith, though it's preceded by a rather wet lettuce of an attack on vegetarianism.
While some lines may err on the petulant or contrived, Kirshen is, for the most part, a clever and dextrous comic. Claiming to suffer from both attention deficit disorder and obsessive-compulsive behaviour, he explores the conditions individually and links them nicely, explaining how they balance each other out - he is too distracted to ever complete the neurotic task he has set himself. It is a solid debut and a show that would put many a more experienced comedian to shame.
To 28 August, except 15 (0131-556 6550)
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