Review - BBC Comedy Presents - Early and late

Usually the best ticket in in the Fringe and this year was no exception. The late night comedy from the BBC is always a good show, often a great show. It starts late enough for the audience to be sufficiently 'relaxed' and, because most of the comedians have come here after their shows have finished and the venue is a large one, they are a combination of relaxed and terrified, pleased to be playing before an full venue that's probably far larger than the tiny empty place that they have just come from and possibly regretting that drink or line they took to settle their nerves. But that's okay because the audience have been drinking too.

Certainly the show I saw contained two comics who had taken a drink, one obviously, one not so much but both still very funny as they reeled out the highlight ten minutes from their set. The compare was sober, he has to be as he interacts with the audience and that can get interesting at this time of night.

Most of all though, it was tremendous fun, the compare was great, the acts were good and the star turn, Nina Conti, was outstanding; make no mistake, ventriloquist dummies are creepy, Nina embraced that, turned the creepy into funny, the funny into spooky, the spooky back into funnier and the funnier into disquiet bordering on dread. I haven't been that scared and amused at the same time since I was tickled at gunpoint.

This showcase tends to provide the acts that you tell your friends about when you get back from the Fringe and they ask you who you saw, because as cool as it is to tell them about the comedians they know from panel and stand up shows, it's cooler still to tell them about the comedians they'll be seeing in a few months time on panel and stand up shows.

This is still the best ticket in town.