Festival Comedy list.co.uk/festival

Telephone Booking Fringe 0131 226 0000 International Festival 0131 473 2000 Book Festival 0845 373 5888 Art Festival 07500 461 332 SOUND AND FURY Playful postmodern romp with knob gags ●●●●●

no identifying features. In his comedy, not facially. Facially he’s easy to spot: good-looking, with the sort of dastardly moustache that you rather suspect is going to turn out to be part of his act. But it isn’t. Things that are part of his act: Buzz Aldrin, caravans, pedantry, and the verb ‘to Argos’. Carlin is obviously a great writer. He doesn’t just take pleasure in language, he worries at it with his teeth, pulls it

apart to show us how ridiculous our uses of it are; and when that passion slips out, the show catches on fire. But, curiously, given his line of

work, he doesn’t seem to want to offend anyone. There are teasing moments when it seems he’s about to take on a meaty topic the English football team or people who voted for David Cameron but then he shies away, preferring to riff quietly

around minutiae. Go on, Stephen, show us your teeth again. (Kirstin Innes) The Stand III & IV, 558 7272, until 29 Aug (not 16), 8pm, £8 (£7). For up-to-the-minute Festival news follow us on Twitter: @thelistmagazine

Private Dick, Sound and Fury’s latest Fringe offering, is a postmodern homage to the film noir. But not content with one reference point, there’s a potful of others to spot too, including a bit of Shakespeare and a writer who spawned a whole, dodgy religion. On the opening night, there was a great deal of good-natured corpsing and fumbling of lines; inevitably they’ll iron these out as the run goes on but you get the impression that the playfulness between the three will be maintained. They appear to be thoroughly

enjoying their work and their enthusiasm is infectious. Indeed their performance spills out into the corridor as one of the cast, dressed in a frock and dodgy wig, hangs around the queue before the show and the other two greet the crowd on our way into the room. In the main, the humour is derived from innuendo, which wears a touch thin after a while. Nevertheless, it’s a carefully observed mimicry of the movie genre and in amongst the more obvious knob gags there are some clever lines. More of these instead please. (Marissa Burgess) Underbelly, 08445 458 252, until 29 Aug (not 18), 11.45pm, £9–£10.50 (£6.50–£9.50).

STEPHEN CARLIN Airdrie wag refuses to get tough ●●●●● Stephen Carlin doesn’t really have a thing, in that way that comedians do:

48 THE LIST 12–19 Aug 2010

MAGNUS BETNER Cult comic in the making ●●●●●

It’s a traditional stand-up tactic to ingratiate yourself upon an audience by finding a connection between yourself and someone in the crowd. Early on Magnus Betnér discovers that there are some fellow Swedes in the front row. This means about as much to him as the knowledge that three reviewers are present tonight: ‘I’m anti-Swede.’ He’s also not too struck on religion, the far right (who he says have spent the last ten years sending him death threats) and those who immediately think necrophiliacs are a bit weird. For Betnér, there’s logic to many positions and

choices in society which are deemed unnatural and this is what makes him such an intriguing comic. It appears that he’s not just taking up a position on an issue (such as the necrophilia or suggesting that abortion be far more readily available and indeed encouraged even after a child is born) simply to be obtuse or

controversial: it actually feels as though he truly means it. And when he offers up an explanation, you too might join his way of thinking. Though his notions on the army are rather pat (join an

organisation built on violence and you can’t expect sympathy if you get killed), this is a rare note where his audience isn’t being enlightened. Betnér’s vulnerability also helps to get the crowd on his side, recalling the moment when he accidentally came out as bisexual, and being frank about his alcoholism. And even when he recommends the comic coming up after him in the same room (Norwegian Dag Soras), there’s nothing showbiz about it, he’s simply passing on a fact and helping out a friend. Authenticity plays a big part of Magnus Betnér’s stand-up and it’s this that might well make him a cult figure before he heads back to Sweden. (Brian Donaldson) The Stand III & IV, 558 7272, until 29 Aug (not 17), 10.20pm, £8 (£7).