What is it with Australasia and folk parody? First, Flight of the Conchords; now, Sarah Davies, whose spoof hippie Jade the Folk Singer won the inaugural female stand-up award at the Comedy Store last month.
Unlike the Conchords, whose relationship with folk is tenuous in the extreme, Davies's parody lovingly rehashes the old beards-and-sandals stereotypes. She has had a tortuous festival: laryngitis forced her to cancel several shows, and to mime several others to a backing track. But even the mimed shows (with added interpretive dance) were fun. Davies is a charming performer, whose pluck in adversity may have won as many admirers as Jade's gushing songs about dolphins and lesbian love.
Jade's voyage of sexual self-discovery is the motor of Davies's show. It starts when she discovers her boyfriend in bed with her mother ("He fucked my mum," she sings, incontrovertibly). The shock propels her into a lesbian love affair, for which she never quite develops a taste.
This may all be too genitally oriented for some tastes (ie, mine). And Davies overplays the joke about Jade's low self-esteem, which would be funnier if it were less insistent. But the songs are splendid, her plagiarised poems (which Bonnie Tyler fans may recognise) are recited in a delicious deadpan, and Davies keeps a well-judged distance between herself and the character throughout. Skilled and likable - if a little unsophisticated - comedy.
· Until Monday. Box office: 0131-556 6550.
