It is less fun being a Rich Hall fan these days. One of stand-up's most razor-witted, charismatic practitioners, he hasn't brought a solo show to Edinburgh since the Perrier success of his Otis Lee Crenshaw alter-ego two years ago. Last year, he shared the stage with the not-quite-as-good US comic Dave Fulton. This year, he doubles up with entirely-less-appealing US comic Mike Wilmot. There are barely 10 minutes of Rich Hall solo in the whole show - and even they include jokes recycled from years gone by.
It's a major disappointment, not least because his show, Pretzel Logic, deals with George W Bush, a subject on which you would expect Hall to be very funny indeed. As a self-confessed exile from trailer park America, the gravelly Montana stand-up knows precisely where Bush and his gang are coming from.
The opening bodes well for a scathing set: Hall plays the current, monstrously belligerent US country hit, Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue, over the sound system. But no sooner has Hall hit his stride than his patter, about how Bush interprets geopolitics with reference to comic books, is interrupted. In the guise of the new Yankee ambassador to Scotland, Wilmot first heckles then arrests Hall for criticising the president.
Apparently this is still a work-in-progress, which may account for the series of thin skits that follow. First, Hall appears as Henry J Heimlich, demonstrating, with diagrams, the mechanics of Bush's pretzel accident, then (for no apparent reason) a Ku Klux Klan buddy of Wilmot's Barbara Bush. Wilmot also road-tests some lazy sex-comedy of his own. More so than in Hall's double act last year, there's a shambling complacency to proceedings. It looks as if Hall has grown bored of straight stand-up, which is fair enough. But it would be a shame if he were to drag his fans into disillusion with him.
Until August 26. Box office: 0131-226 2428.
