When an established comedian launches a new character he is taking a risk. Having made his name in The Adam and Joe Show, Adam Buxton has set out to do it all over again with Pavel, a nihilist animator from Funsktftkkk, a scrap of ice and darkness in the former Soviet Union.
Neither this name nor the character's overlaps with Sacha Baron-Cohen's Borat augured well. But Buxton is full of surprises. Within a minute, the intensity of his performance is already a little frightening. Framed by a stained suede jacket and colossal brown beard, his eyes flash with mental instability.
Pavel's accent, an alloy of Topol and Inspector Clouseau, bucks excitably in all directions. He is fun to watch, like a batty science teacher; the show, ostensibly Pavel's life story, is decent, too. It revolves principally around his travails in an unappreciative art world and his experiences under the influence of "rusty-can booze". Punctuating proceedings are half-a-dozen of Buxton's marvellously silly films, depicting such things as a baby TV executive ("Think outside the cot!") and some of Pavel's bleak animations.
There are few moments of breathless hilarity, but this is certainly a good new start.
· Until August 29. Box office: 0131-556 6550.
