Time: 10pm
Capacity: Around 150, and two thirds full.
The theme: Last year, Kirshen cancelled his Fringe show to appear on Last Comic Standing, a kind of comedians' X-Factor on American TV. This year he's come to tell us about the experience. "It's like getting a massage from a burly man," he explains. "I know it's doing me good, but I still feel a bit dirty."
High point: As a child-sized Jewish maths graduate, Kirshen is not short of comic material. "You should see me on a swing," he always used to say. And besides, he is a witty, witty man with some fine stories to tell - about trying to buy drive-through food without a car, for instance, or being asked to autograph a Texan fan's gun magazine.
Weak spot: The material is new, and Kirshen seems still to be building up his confidence in it. The jokes that don't work have not yet been cut, and many of the good ones rattle past at such pace that you feel he is not making the most of them. His rapport with the audience - always a strength in the past – begins to waver when he stumbles over some lines or is thrown completely by unexpected answers. "I mean, who buys a Ryanair keyring?" he asks incredulously at one stage, and is lost for words when a man in the audience admits to owning five. Later, when a woman comes back from the toilet, he looks momentarily more embarrassed than she does.
Audience participation: Unpredictable – but then that's supposed to be the point. And I think he was hoping for more than one American in the crowd.
Comic equation: Woody Allen squared
Mark out of 10: 5
Put this on your poster: You can take the Matt out of America…
