Standup has no more restless innovator than Simon Munnery, a perennial misfit deep into middle age and still reinventing live comedy. But when he jokes in his latest event, Fylm-Makker, that "this show is a work-in-progress without the progress element", it's a little too close for comfort. Six months after its Edinburgh debut, this experimental performance – Munnery sits in the audience and live-streams footage of himself on to the stage – is unusual, but not fully realised. He has found an intriguing new vehicle in live film, yet needs to fill it with better comedy.
For his "fylm", Munnery is positioned discreetly in the auditorium, camera trained first on his face, then on a tabletop in front of him, on which he animates doodles and cardboard cut-out puppets. It's DIY verging on juvenile, as he treats us to dead-end playlets about Woffles and Snifflick the puppy detectives, or manoeuvres his cartoon wife on a swim round an island. Titters derive from the oddity of what we're watching, and from its wilful crapness, as routines peter out inconclusively. Nothing is developed, nothing is substantial. There's too little of the brain-twisting logic and blindsiding perceptions of which Munnery is capable.
What we get is likeable enough: his pleasure in his new toy is infectious. There is attractive musical accompaniment from Mick Moriarty, and some batty moments that raise a smile: a manic depiction of "constant vigilance"; a puzzled deconstruction of some One Direction lyrics.
But it's only the sub-Paper Cinema animations that fully utilise Munnery's "fylm" format, and even these feel underdeveloped. What else can he do with this medium that he can't do standing on stage? On this evidence, he is only beginning to work that out.
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