When you see Tommy Tiernan deliver his observational comedy, you realise what so many other stand-ups are doing wrong. We're in the hands of a master here. Most importantly, he seems to care. His face is bright and alert and amused; he looks impatient for the laughs to stop, so he can get on. His material comes from the heart, and he lets it work him into a physical passion. It's an oft-neglected rule of comedy: audiences only give a damn if the performer seems to.
The focus is on Tiernan's life: his schooling, his Irishness, his family. On the one hand, you hanker for more provocative subject matter, but Tiernan succeeds in elevating this pedestrian stuff into something almost soulful. Plenty of comedians joke about the march of mobile technology; Tiernan points out that its logical conclusion, when we can all refashion our lives digitally in our heads, "will be just like having an imagination". His faith in that quality is touching. When education forces young Tommy to believe that life is all one, two, three, four, he furiously resists: "Eleventy-nine, forty-five, I'm a banana!"
In other words, there's a coherent worldview here; a refreshing humanist optimism, and a structural skill. The way he reveals a certain detail about his baby daughter is a masterpiece of tension and release. You'll seldom see the standard stand-up themes so vibrantly revisited.
· Until August 24. Box office: 0131-228 9950.
