Luke Toulson at Chortle's Fast Fringe

Clip from 2009 Edinburgh Fringe show

More Luke Toulson videos

Luke Toulson: Sorry About Last Night
Live Review

Last year, Luke Toulson had the sort of bad Edinburgh Fringe that could have driven someone to drink. However, Toulson was already there: finding himself waking up in gutters, sneaking miniatures of liquor onto the Tube and having ill advised relations with women in graveyards. Rather than hit the bottle, he decided to bin it.

Leading us through the minefield of first dates as a teetotal father of two, Toulson recounts his experiences dealing with dating and living sober. His narrative leads us back into his childhood and hits on seemingly every important moment through to fatherhood. The show is brilliantly crafted and should flow seamlessly – if Touslon wasn’t faced with the audience he had in tonight.

The start of the show was delayed due to a large group of latecomers trying to find seats, there was a certain amount of heckling, then more latecomers and several other audience related incidents tripping up the show. Rather than trying to plough through an obviously touching show by ignoring the distractions Toulson embraced them and created a impressive performance tailored to the specific crowd he was faced with.

Toulson’s skill and speed of improvisation is hugely impressive. He has a natural talent for banter which is a step above the norm, calling back and interweaving each ad lib with the next, constructing a show more cohesive and complete than some of the most tightly scripted shows on the Fringe.

His disarming charm encourages interaction and people seem genuinely enthusiastic to join in with his flights of fancy, even when they end up with a matchmaking service played out across the room.

And yet despite all of the interruptions, asides and distractions somehow Toulson still manages to deliver the tale he wants to tell. Some sections are slightly hurried to ensure we get to the crux of the story, but it is nonetheless a superbly written piece of work which is poignant, thought-provoking and above all incredibly funny.

Very very Funny.

Nat, April 2011