Garth Cruickshank and Eddie McCabe surprised everybody last year by winning Perrier's best newcomer award. Anyone expecting gilded comedy from their latest show, The Nonsense, is in for an even bigger shock. The pair are watchable and charismatic, but their material is execrable. The Nonsense demonstrates a taste for smut and abuse that would bore even a 15-year-old.
Cruickshank and McCabe again appear as fading end-of-the-pier entertainer Harry Ainsworth and his unimpressed henchman Dave Strong. Here, Ainsworth is presenting an audience participation game show involving a series of inane challenges. But the clapped-out vaudevillian shtick has been done far more amusingly by Terry Titter; and the game show is just Shooting Stars for the lobotomised. Cock and Balls involves hitting rubber chickens with sponge balls. The Instant Queer test finds the very concept of homosexuality boorishly entertaining.
"Who wants fun?" runs Ainsworth's catchphrase. "Who wants laughter?" Well, I do - but they've long since left this building. If their imagination one day emerges from below their waistbands, Cruickshank and McCabe's performing talent may yet be put to good use. As things stand, their Perrier accolade leaves the pair looking ruthlessly exposed.
Until August 25. Box office: 0131-620 2408.
