Francesca Martinez's stand-up show effectively makes the point that disability is relative. Martinez has cerebral palsy, and while speech disturbance means that split-second comic timing isn't her speciality, in other ways it works to her advantage. The audience, after all, is rooting for her before the first punchline has tripped from her lips.
Her debut Edinburgh show, I'mperfect, begins with several confident routines on disability. With her assistant Marcus Birdman, Martinez presents flashbacks to her first dinner date (nightmare eating options: soup or spaghetti), and to the occasion when a shop security guard accuses her of mocking the afflicted. "I can't win," she says. "People either think I'm pissed or taking the piss." She concludes her set by inviting an audience member on stage to help her live the dream that cerebral palsy has denied her: to be a hairdresser. Her enlightening, big-hearted comedy reveals our own skewed perceptions of disability.
But there is more to Open Mic award-winner Martinez than that. Her experiences have engendered a very perceptive scepticism of the ways capitalism tries to fit us into boxes. She has great material on advertising and brands, though she could weed out some of her more generic observational material. But it is refreshing to see a comedian with convictions, all the more so when that comedian has so much charm and energy.
· Until August 26. Box office: 0131-556 6550.
