"It's funny until someone gets hurt," as Bill Hicks famously said. "Then it's just hilarious." That's the truism: that comedy thrives on pain, discomfort, failure, and that most joke-mining is conducted down the darker shafts of human experience. Josie Long is trying something different: can you be funny while being unremittingly upbeat? Perhaps so: after all, Long's DIY, scrapbook comedy won her the if.comedy best newcomer gong last year.
But, at least with the underpowered performance I saw this year, her sugar-coated shtick can also turn the teeth furry. Long, and the loose collective of young comedians she leads, are the inheritors of Daniel Kitson, who wore his vulnerability and romanticism on his sleeve in his early stand-up and storytelling shows. But Kitson usually laced the schmaltz with vitriol. Long, by contrast, is all smiles. "My glimpse into other people's lives is beautiful," she tells us. Every stranger is a well of lovable eccentricities waiting to be discovered. She loves looking at the way people brace their faces against the rain. "I'm totally sincere in my love for these people," she insists.
But her sincerity isn't at issue. The question is: is it funny? The answer is: sometimes. At her worst, she aims for childlike and ends up infantile - an impression that the show's sticky-tape and crayons aesthetic unhappily emphasises. A slideshow about her visit to a favourite bakery reveals only that enthusiasm is no substitute for jokes, and that Long has too much time on her hands. On the other hand, a paean to the 19th-century painter Edward Hicks works, because Hicks' story (he obsessively painted and repainted the same picture throughout his life) perfectly illustrates the nerdy heroism Long admires.
I heartily welcome any challenge to cynicism in comedy. But, at least on this occasion, Long's combination of relentless positivity and cuteness had me desperate for someone to get hurt.
· Until August 27. Box office: 0131-556 6550.
