The inspiration for War, the new show from Australian stand-up Sarah Kendall, was the discovery that seven of her relatives died in 20th-century conflicts. She refers several times to her "research" into the subject: brave talk in a comedy culture that shrinks from appearing serious.
But Kendall soon ducks her head back below the parapet. Rather than share with us the insights yielded by all that study, she tells us what she finds funny about war. Rather than discuss current conflicts, she deals with ones at a safe historical distance.
What results is a diverting hour's chat that could be so much more. Eager to be cheerful, Kendall discusses not war itself, but peripheral matters: Hitler's girlfriends; the lawyer who had the misfortune of defending the Third Reich at Nuremberg. She has arrived at the subject from a position of naivety, and assumes the same of her audience. At one point, she apologetically pauses the comedy to spell out the message. But her material is heartfelt, and when she learns to integrate, not separate, the laughs and the moral outrage, Kendall will have a show worth fighting for.
&~149; Until August 27. Box office: 0131-226 2151.
