If the stories are true, Keith Carter began his showbiz career by drinking half a bottle of gin and three pints of bitter, then insulting the audience at a comedy club. He did not get a big round of applause.
Tonight's performance, however, reveals a character comedian of rare skill. There is a remarkable rapport between entertainer and audience as Carter plays a trio of larger-than-life Liverpudlians in a show allegedly constructed to celebrate his home town's selection as European Capital of Culture.
Carter is note-perfect as Colin, an unhappily married hairdresser trying to reinvent himself as a professional singer, and as Gerald, a "driver to the stars" spilling the beans about Bruce Willis's toilet paper and Judi Dench's cider binges. Best of all, however, is Nige, the lovable dopehead scally. Prone to vacant pauses and misfiring synapses, he somehow manages to squeeze out some scabrous stories about his bezzie mate, the hopeless Dogshit Barry, and to offer some very un-PC tips for life. Then he picks up his guitar and launches into a song "dedicated to everyone who has loved and lost". First heard in Edinburgh two years ago, it's called Slag, and was inspired by the girlfriend who two-timed him in his own bed - while Nige was trying to sleep in it. "You're laughing at my life here," he complains, accurately enough.
· Until August 28. Box office: 0131-556 2549.
