Shelf-stackers and checkout girls, Werther's Originals and Oatso Simple. Yes, we are in the world of downbeat, bittersweet northern comedy, where you can just discern over the music from the Hovis ad the sound of Victoria Wood's footsteps on the cobblestones. Isy Suttie is an appealing young musical comic, armed with an acoustic guitar and a story about an unfulfilled supermarket employee looking for love. There may be equally unfulfilled broadcasters and legal counsels out there too, but to fast-track to poignancy at a well-heeled festival like the Edinburgh Fringe, shelf-stackers and checkout girls do the trick every time.
At least Suttie gives these clichés a dusting down and buffs them up with charm and wit. Her story is set in Matlock Bath in Derbyshire, and its heroes are Lisa Marsden and Carl Butcher. They want to be lovers, but a visiting American chanteuse, performing at the Fishpond nightclub, keeps getting in the way. With that character, Suttie has fun sending up the self-absorbed inanity of Avril Lavigne and Alanis Morissette. She also introduces a supermarket supervisor, memorably sketched to resemble a wedding cake, and a fairy godmother who secures an entirely predictable happy ending for Lisa and Carl.
Alan Bennett recently complained that he was no longer merely accused of being twee, but had become its yardstick. Here, Bennett-style tweeness is just about kept at bay, thanks to Suttie's effective turns of phrase (love is "a salmon leaping up a multicoloured stream") and her frequent anti-romantic switchbacks: Lisa "spreads her legs like a slag made of butter", and Carl feels soppy enough to address her with the following words of love: "If you were a golliwog, I'd overlook the social taboo."
I'll overlook the familiarity of Suttie's material, and salute the lyrical flair and big-heartedness with which she brings it to life.
· Until August 27. Box office: 0131-556 6550.
