There's a routine towards the end of Adam Bloom's set that I'd love to see extended into a whole show. It features the smarmy voiceover of Mitch Pileggi, dispensing the four invaluable rules of successful stand-up comedy.
Bloom, onstage in the costume of a clown, demonstrates them with heavy irony. The 10-minute skit prises ajar a can of worms - the formulaic nature of the comedian's craft - whose lid will one day be ripped clean off by a stand-up with guts. Bloom is in pole position to do so, even if the opening of his act deploys many of the trade tricks he later lampoons.
At first, the peroxide-topped Bloom seems as likely to delight, and as unlikely to provoke, as the panting puppy dog he resembles. He's one of many stand-ups this year to riff on the themes of mobile phones and Eminem (his doppelganger). It's genial but bland stuff compared with what follows.
Bloom doesn't practise stand-up in order to be famous, he says, much as "I don't have a good meal in order to poo". He satirises our cash-thirsty culture with a winning routine about a diffident contestant on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?
It's just a shame that it takes until the second half of his set for this cuddliest of comedians to flash his surprisingly sharp claws.
Until August 27. Box office: 0131-556 6550.
