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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Brian Logan

Ben Willbond

Ben Willbond / Edinburgh04
'Braying berk': Ben Willbond's 'Freddie' character gets close to the bone

The chinless public schoolboy will always be with us. So, mercifully, will those who lampoon him. The latest is Ben Willbond, once of Priorité à Gauche, now pairing up with Katy Brand in a quartet of character comedy vignettes. The first (and last) of these stars Fulham rugger bugger Ed Wellesley-Smith, or "Freddie", the type of braying berk who needs only pick up the phone to an old school chum to secure a TV commission from the station he refers to as "Chanel Quatro".

Ed's troubles with his horsey paramour Olivia Benton-Jones - or "Livsie B-J" - form the backbone of the show. A second couple also played by Brand and Willbond, Jed and Jules Simmonds, have sold up in London for a new life in a Dordogne vineyard. They were following the dream; now, judging by the wine-tasting session they co-present, they've found the nightmare. It is a grimly amusing snapshot of curdled bohemian idealism. Willbond delivers the ostensible compliment "She's always there" like an SOS.

The other characters are weaker. An army captain on a recruitment drive can't get over his marital break-up. Julio, a Colombian drug-runner in a frilly shirt, purrs like a cat. Both are ably realised by Willbond, but they need more persuasive scenarios to inhabit. For now, it's Freddie who is closest to the bone.

· Until August 30. Box office: 0131-556 6550.

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